Biden to Launch Health-Care Agenda -- 2nd Update

By Stephanie Armour and Sabrina Siddiqui

President Biden on Thursday will begin shaping his health-care agenda by lifting certain restrictions on abortion funding and relaunching Affordable Care Act insurance sign-ups, moving swiftly to reassemble components of the health law weakened by the former Trump administration, according to a person familiar with the planning.

Mr. Biden will sign executive orders directing the reopening of enrollment on the ACA's federal exchanges and rescinding a Trump administration policy that blocked federal funds to nongovernmental agencies that provide abortion counseling or referrals, the person said.

Mr. Biden will also initiate a review of a Trump administration decision that cut off federal funding for family-planning organizations such as Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the person said. The Trump administration cut off funding to organizations that refer patients for abortions, and Planned Parenthood left the program known as Title X. An action related to Medicaid, a federal-state program for low-income and disabled people, is also expected.

While Mr. Biden agreed with some of Mr. Trump's health-care initiatives, such as ending surprise medical billings and some antitrust actions to curb market concentration in the industry, the actions coming Thursday are aimed at unraveling his predecessor's stamp on health care. The moves are spurring criticism from conservative and antiabortion groups that have opposed the ACA and lauded restrictions on federal funding for abortion.

Mr. Trump had pledged to repeal the ACA and replace it with a better alternative but failed to do either. He supported key parts of a lawsuit from a coalition of Republican-led states to invalidate the ACA, which the Supreme Court is weighing.

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, criticized the Obama administration's ACA implementation, while adding that Mr. Biden's health-care plans would "make people pay more and wait longer for worse care." He also voiced concern over the flurry of executive orders Mr. Biden has signed since taking office last week.

"I'm just concerned that Joe Biden is doing a number of things with executive orders across the board," Mr. Barrasso said Tuesday. "The president is certainly not acting like somebody who is looking for unity and wants to work in a bipartisan way."

The abortion policy on nongovernmental agencies is known as the Mexico City policy, referring to the city where it was announced in 1984 by Ronald Reagan, who first instituted it. The policy, dubbed the "global gag rule" by critics because it restricts organizations that seek U.S. funding from dispensing abortion information, has been reversed and reinstated in successive Democratic and Republican administrations.

The Trump administration said Mr. Trump's decision to reinstate the policy in January 2017 was a reflection of his views on abortion.

Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit antiabortion advocacy group, criticized the move as Mr. Biden's payback to abortion providers for campaign donations. "It is also a slap in the face to the majority of Americans who do not want their tax dollars sent to abortion businesses, and especially not to abortion promoters overseas," she added.

The Biden administration's actions had been widely expected. Dr. Anthony Fauci last week previewed the rescinding of the abortion rule in remarks before the World Health Organization. Health-care advocates had expected the reopening of open enrollment under the ACA for health insurance and say they also expect Mr. Biden to provide more funding for outreach and marketing of the plans.

A number of Democrats had unsuccessfully urged the Trump administration to extend the ACA's open enrollment period, which ended Dec. 15, because of the pandemic.

The plan to expand the enrollment period was first reported Sunday by the Hill, a political-news publication.

Any effort to boost sign-ups would require outreach funding, health analysts say. The Trump administration cut funding for those efforts by 90%.

Health-advocacy groups and Democrats say the coming signing of the executive orders indicates that Mr. Biden can and will use regulation and guidance to shore up the ACA even if Congress doesn't take action. Democrats have a razor-thin margin in the House, and the Senate is evenly split, though Vice President Kamala Harris can break any tie votes.

Mr. Biden played a key role in getting the ACA passed and campaigned on expanding the law, resisting calls from progressives to embrace Medicare for All, the single-payer health-care proposal championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Mr. Biden called for both expanding federal subsidies and eligibility requirements for Medicare.

Mr. Biden has also proposed for the federal government to subsidize insurance for some people in states that didn't expand Medicaid by automatically enrolling them in a federal public option resembling Medicare.

During arguments before the Supreme Court in November over the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the health law, several conservative Supreme Court justices joined liberals voicing skepticism that the entire Affordable Care Act must fall, suggesting the law may survive its latest test in the high court.

Mr. Biden has promised to bolster access to health care regardless of the outcome of the case.

"We're going to do everything in our power to ease the burden of health care on you and your families," Mr. Biden said in November, "to flesh out the details so that we can hit the ground running: tackling cost, increasing access, lowering the price of prescription drugs. Families are reeling right now."

The actions planned Thursday also indicate that Mr. Biden intends to advance a double-barreled approach of ramping up federal action on combating coronavirus while also strengthening the health law. He could seek to reverse work requirements in Medicaid and offer enticements to get more states to expand the program, restrict enrollment in health plans that don't comply with the law, and strengthen benefits that must be covered by health plans under the ACA.

"It's two-pronged. The Biden administration is moving full steam ahead on health care as well as Covid and not waiting for Congress to act," said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation. "He has full authority to reverse everything the Trump administration did on health care, and more."

--Siobhan Hughes contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Armour at [e-mail] and Sabrina Siddiqui at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-26-21 1633ET