On Thursday, January 28, President Joe Biden signed an executive order expanding Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, the BBC reports.
"I'm not initiating any new law, any new aspect of the law," he said in the White House Oval Office on Thursday, in response to criticism that he was leading by executive order, as opposed to by legislation passed in congress.
"There is nothing new that we're doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act ... to the way it was before Trump became president," he added.
Per CBS News, Biden said he is "restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring the Medicaid to the way it was before Trump became president, which by fiat he changed, made more inaccessible, more expensive and more difficult for people to qualify for either of those two items."
The order will reopen the federal insurance marketplace for three months. This contrasts with the six weeks the enrolment period lasted for under his predecessor.
Per the BBC, the Trump Administration had their sights set on dismantling Obamacare.
According to President Biden - who was vice president when Obamacare was enacted - it is vital that affordable healthcare is restored in the country amid the ongoing pandemic.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the new executive order in a weekly briefing, saying per the outlet: "We're very excited about that because we're of course in the middle of a pandemic and we see this was a matter of life and death."
The order also entails seeking a reduction in coverage in the Medicaid healthcare programme for low-income US citizens. Medicaid allows states to impose work requirements on aid-seekers, a measure that was created under Trump.
Biden has also paved the way for a revision of measures that restrict protections for patients who have pre-existing conditions - as well as policies that restrict healthcare enrolment.
Most Americans have health insurance through their employer, a benefit which has been sabotaged by redundancies as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Around 5 to 10 million Americans may have lost their health insurance due to the Covid crisis, early stats indicate.
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