The Affordable Care Act’s six-month special enrollment period comes to a close this weekend after helping drive marketplace coverage to record levels as the Biden administration continues to scrap Trump-era policies that depressed sign-ups. While final data isn’t available, state and federal marketplace enrollment could soon be “peaking” at a record 13 million or more, […]

Nine moderate House Democrats have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatening to withhold support from a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint until a bipartisan infrastructure package is signed into law, according to Punchbowl News. “It’s time to get shovels in the ground and people to work,” the Democrats wrote, according to Punchbowl. “We will not consider […]

The Senate struggled for months to get agreement and ultimately a bipartisan vote to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure package. Now Democrats in Congress are moving on to something potentially even harder: staying united on a $3.5 trillion budget that would represent the most ambitious remaking of the social safety net since the New Deal. Without Republican support they […]

When the U.S. Supreme Court rejected in June the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, it was widely regarded as an end to efforts to dismantle the landmark law. Instead of  ‘repeal and replace,’ many lawmakers started talking about efforts to ‘expand and improve’ the ACA. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., […]

Insurers and consumer advocates are facing off over a Department of Health and Human Services proposal to extend the Affordable Care Act’s annual enrollment period and allow year-round sign-ups for those with low incomes. In public comment letters on the proposed update (RIN 0938–AU60) of Obamacare benefits and payment parameters, major marketplace insurers like Anthem, Centene Corp., and UnitedHealthcare, all opposed a […]

Two of the nation’s key health insurance lobbies — AHIP and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association — strongly oppose CMS’ plans to create a new monthly enrollment period for subsidy-eligible people earning 150% or below of poverty and to extend the open enrollment period for a month. But the lobbies representing community health plans […]

The Biden administration is looking to extend Obamacare’s annual enrollment season and allow some of the poorest marketplace customers to buy coverage essentially whenever they want, under a new proposal aimed at bolstering the health care law. CMS on Monday also proposed rolling back Trump-era rules that Democrats argued would have undermined the marketplaces. Longer enrollment window: CMS […]

The U.S. health-care law known as Obamacare spent its first decade dodging a series of existential risks. By a single vote in the Senate, the law survived a repeal attempt in 2017 pushed by then-President Donald Trump. The Supreme Court shut down the latest challenge in a 7-2 decision that denied Republican states’ challenge to the […]

Two key committee chairs in the House and Senate are taking the first step toward crafting legislation to create a public health insurance option, reviving a debate between the parties on the federal government’s role in coverage and setting up a fight with the insurance industry. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., […]