President Joe Biden will take his first steps on Thursday to reverse the Trump Administration's health policies.
The Democratic president plans to sign executive orders that include
reopening Obamacare enrollment, expanding health coverage services to Americans and removing restrictions on access to abortion.
The biggest short-term impact will come from Biden's reopening of the HealthCare.gov insurance markets, as coverage has been reduced during the economic slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Created under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the marketplaces offer taxpayer-subsidized coverage regardless of a person's medical history or previous conditions, including COVID-19.
That new three-month "special enrollment period" could begin on February 15
, according to a White House summary.
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Biden will also immediately reverse a federal policy prohibiting taxpayer funding for nonprofit international health care organizations that offer abortion counseling or referrals.
Known as the Mexico City Policy, it can be turned on and off depending on whether Democrats or Republicans control the White House.
Biden has resorted to executive orders in his early days in office to quickly get his agenda in motion and reverse his predecessor's measures.
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He has already signed 33 measures in his first six days, such as the mandatory use of masks in federal spaces or the repeal of Trump's ban on transgender Americans from joining the military.
On Tuesday, his actions focused on creating a police commission and promoting fair housing policies.
On Wednesday he put the spotlight on the fight against climate change by presenting an ambitious plan.
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This Thursday Biden plans to focus on
sanitary measures
, although it could take months to get going.
The Department of Health and Human Services will be instructed on the following issues:
- Consider rescinding Trump regulations that prohibit federally funded family planning clinics from performing abortions on women.
The referral ban led Planned Parenthood clinics to leave the program.
- Reexamine a Trump Administration policy that allows states to impose work requirements as a condition for low-income individuals to obtain Medicaid health insurance.
The labor requirements have been blocked by federal judges and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the matter.
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- Review policies that could undermine protections for people with health problems, such as a rule of the Trump Administration that made it easier to sell short-term health insurance plans that do not have to cover previous pathologies.
The abortion-related actions will bring Biden immediate praise from women's rights groups, as well as condemnation from social and religious conservatives.
Under former President Trump, opponents of abortion were given free rein to try to rewrite federal policy, and now the political pendulum is receding.
Biden also campaigned to repeal old federal bans against taxpayer funding for abortion
, but a change of that magnitude to a group of laws known as the Hyde Amendment would require congressional approval.
The regulatory changes that Biden is asking for from federal health officials will not happen overnight because hastily written rules are more easily overridden in court, as the Trump Administration found.
Time and again, federal judges ruled that Trump officials overlooked legal requirements for regulators, such as showing they have considered all the consequences.
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The idea of reopening the Obamacare health insurance markets has wide support, including from consumer groups, professional medical associations, insurers, and commercial organizations.
Although the number of uninsured Americans has risen due to job losses during the pandemic, the Trump Administration resisted calls to reopen HealthCare.gov.
The failure to repeal and replace Obamacare as he repeatedly promised was one of the former president's bitterest disappointments
.
His government continued to try to find ways to limit the program or tear it down completely.
This year, a Supreme Court decision is expected on Trump's final legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.
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The Obama-era health care law covers more than 23 million people through a combination of subsidized private insurance sold in all states, and expanded Medicaid adopted by 38 states, with the southern states being the main exception.
Coverage is available to people who don't have health insurance from work, and the Medicaid expansion is targeting people with low incomes.
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Of some 28 million Americans without health insurance before the pandemic,
more than 16 million were eligible for some subsidized coverage through the health law
, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
Experts agree that the number of uninsured people has increased due to layoffs caused by the economic crisis of the pandemic.
It is estimated that between 5 and 10 million lost it, but the official data will be published by the Government at the end of the year.
The special enrollment opportunity is just a down payment on health insurance for Biden, who has vowed to leverage former President Barack Obama's health law to propel the United States toward coverage for all.
For that, it would need congressional approval, and opposition to the healthcare bill still runs deep among Republicans.
With information from CNN and AP.