US President Joe Biden Tuesday issued an executive order to improve citizens’ access to healthcare by expanding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid in furtherance of a similar order last year.
In January 2021, Biden signed Executive Order 14009 (Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act). The order made it the Biden administration’s policy to provide affordable high-quality healthcare to every citizen. Executive agencies were required to test existing regulations against this policy and suspend or revise inconsistent regulations. The nature of regulations to be reviewed included policies undermining protections for people with pre-existing conditions, waivers undermining the ACA or Medicaid, and policies undermining the market for health insurance at individual or group levels.
Consequent to the 2021 order, the recent order notes, Missouri and Oklahoma became the 38th and 39th states to expand Medicaid to people below 138 percent of the Federal poverty level, covering nearly 500,000 more people. In a special enrollment period and an open enrollment period, over 2.8 million and 14.5 million citizens were able to enroll for ACA coverage respectively. Paperwork burdens were reduced, while low-income citizens were allowed to enroll in ACA coverage year-round. On average, maximum out-of-pocket costs for people with employment and ACA coverage were reduced by $400.
Despite this significant process, millions continued to be excluded from health coverage: of them, nearly four million citizens, residents of twelve states that have not adopted the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, were excluded from expanded coverage. In light of this, the recent order retains the healthcare-for-all policy and directs agencies to continue their regulation reviews. It expands the scope of regulations to be reviewed to include those that involve improving ease of understanding, choosing, enrolling in, and retaining appropriate coverage.
The order comes on the same day as Biden’s proposal of a rule to correct a “glitch” in the ACA that excluded five million people from ACA coverage and the issuing of a memorandum on tackling the effects of long COVID-19.
