Obamacare Hits Record High Enrollment After Biden Tweaks Trump’s Changes
What a difference a new president makes.
Enrollment in Obamacare health insurance plans has hit a record high this season, a clear, if rare, policy victory for President Joe Biden in his first full year in office. The official final enrollment number has yet to be tallied. But on Thursday, federal health officials noted that even before the deadline, a whopping 14.2 million people nationally had signed up for coverage in the private insurance plans sold on the government-run Obamacare exchanges. That number represents an enrollment increase of well more than 20% from the same period last year.
The big surge came amid boosted financial assistance for enrollments, a wider window for sign-ups, the continuing health effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 850,000 Americans, and the touting of the healthcare reform law by the President.
I'm a stage 4 cancer survivor and the Affordable Care Act saved my life. #GetCovered with health insurance now via https://t.co/txiPAgaBtR before the Jan 15 deadline — the life you save could be your own.
— Laura Packard (@lpackard) January 13, 2022
Thie new tally blows away the previous record for enrollment, more than 12.6 million, which occurred in 2016, the last full year President Barack Obama was in office. Obama won passage of the Affordable Care Act by Congress early in his first term and embraced the nickname Obamacare, which its detractors long have used with derision.
Here are multiple times the filibuster has been ended:
-Taxes
-Obamacare
-Judicial branch appointments
-Executive branch appointments
-ANYTHING RELATED TO THE BUDGET WHICH IS LIKE A GAZILLION THINGSAnd recently the Senate voted to end the filibuster on the debt limit. https://t.co/LceTpRChc9
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 15, 2022
Open enrollment ended Saturday on Healthcare.gov — the federal government insurance plan marketplace that serves 33 states — and on most of the other states’ Affordable Care Act government-run exchanges. Charles Gaba, who operates the Obamacare enrollment news site ACASignups.net, said the enrollment tally is “definitely a win for Biden.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a very big deal,” Gaba said. “You have millions more people who have coverage, and a good 10 million or so that have it much more affordable for them.”
AGAIN:
$500B Climate
$220B ACA subs
$180B Medicaid Gap
$700B Pre-K/Childcare
$100B HCBC
$50B miscellaneous
= $1.75TDO IT AND MOVE THE F*CK ON. https://t.co/ErLQnhxlTu
— Charles #GetCovered-ba 🩺 (@charles_gaba) January 19, 2022
Early on in his term, Trump had pushed for the then-Republican-led Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. His administration also took steps to undercut outreach efforts that had boosted enrollment in past years and shortened the time people had to sign up for coverage.
There are racist whites that honestly believe black folks have a special version of Obamacare, get free cellphones, and go to college for free. Trump knows that and he’s fanning those flames. Meanwhile the press is hammering Biden/Harris over Google 🤷🏾♂️ https://t.co/NdKS74Afm4
— Bad Faith ✝️🐴🇺🇲 (@Jeffdc5) January 16, 2022
“People across America can buy high-quality health insurance for historically low prices, thanks to the American Rescue Plan and the Affordable Care Act,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday in a statement touting the high enrollment levels. “The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to build on the success of these important laws to ensure health care is accessible to everyone who needs it,” Becerra said.
.@POTUS invokes a lesson from 2018 he wants to apply now: go out to the country and explain what you've done. In that case, the ACA, and what GOP repeal would look like. He says he'll make case in 2022 "what we did do and what we want to do."
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) January 19, 2022