It sounds like Obamacare isn’t the popular draw they promised it would be.
[AlAhram] President Joe The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity....turned to his old boss, former President Barack Obama
How much damage could he do in four years?... Eight, then...
, on Saturday to help him encourage Americans to sign up for `Obamacare
...aka the Affordable Care Act, an ineptly designed and worse executed piece of legislation designed to bring 17 percent of the U.S. economy under the direct control of the government. The previous iteration, known as Hillarycare, was laughed out of Washington. This stinker was passed on a party-line vote without being read...
' health care coverage during an expanded special enrollment period in the pandemic.
Biden used his weekly address for a brief Zoom chat with Obama to draw attention to the six-month expanded enrollment period that closes Aug. 15. Meanwhile the government released a report that claims that nearly 31 million Americans a record now have health coverage through Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
`We did this together,` said Obama, whose administration established the health insurance marketplace. `We always talked about how, if we could get the principle of universal coverage established, we could then build on it.'
| But the Biden administration is also claiming credit for four million people who would have been eligible for Medicaid without Obama's law. |
The Health and Human Services Department said in a report that nearly 31 million have obtained coverage in 2021 as a result of the law. That's considerably higher than the more than 20 million estimate that's commonly cited.
The Biden administration has launched a special COVID pandemic sign-up period, and Congress passed a big boost in subsidies for private health plans sold under the law. But that alone doesn't explain the increased coverage.
The report says 11.3 million people are covered through the health law's marketplaces, where subsidized private plans are offered. An additional 14.8 million are covered through expanded Medicaid, the report adds. All but a dozen states have accepted Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, which mainly serves low-income working adults. And 1 million are covered by so-called basic health plans, an option created by the ACA and offered in a limited number of states.
That accounts for enrollment of about 27 million people. But the Biden administration is also claiming credit for four million people who would have been eligible for Medicaid without Obama's law.
The Supreme Court is soon expected to rule on a challenge to the health law from Texas and other GOP-led states. They argue that because Congress has eliminated the law's penalty for being uninsured, a now-toothless ACA requirement that almost all Americans must have health insurance is unconstitutional and therefore the law should fail.
Those defending Obamacare say that even if the Supreme Court strikes down the coverage requirement there's no reason to tamper with the rest of the law.
The White House says 1.2 million people have now signed up for health insurance through the government marketplace during the special enrollment period that began in February. That number includes people who would have qualified for a sign-up opportunity even without Biden's special enrollment period.
A life change such as losing workplace coverage or getting married is considered a `qualifying life event' that allows people to sign up any time during the year. Last year about 390,000 people signed up because of life changes from Feb. 15 to April 30, the government said.