Washington – Former President Barack Obama is returning to the White House for the first time since resigning for an event marking the 12th anniversary of his signing of the Health Care Act, when the Biden administration is taking steps to cut costs for families seeking insurance.
Obama will appear alongside President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at 1:30 p.m. on ET on Tuesday and make remarks regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which he signed in 2010. The law, also known as Obamacare, has expanded access to health insurance for millions of Americans.
The event coincides with new actions announced by the Biden administration to fix what became known as the “family failure” in the ACA.
Under current law, families are eligible for health insurance in the ACA market only if they are forced to spend more than 10% of their income on insurance through their employers or other programs. But if an employee’s cost exceeds 10%, if family members are added to the insurance plan, the family is still considered eligible for coverage and is not eligible for subsidized coverage under the ACA.
The new rule, proposed by the Ministry of Finance, will allow family members who have to pay more than 10% of their income to pay for medical services to receive financial assistance, according to a senior Biden administration official.
“As a result, 200,000 uninsured people are expected to receive coverage, and another nearly a million are expected to have their insurance premiums reduced every day,” the official told reporters in a background call.
The rule came into force only in January 2023, and the official could not say how much it would cost the government to fix the so-called “family failure” and how the government would pay for it. According to the official, Mr. Biden will sign an ordinance instructing the agencies to do everything in their power to make health care more accessible and accessible.
Enrollment in ACA-subsidized plans thorny during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a record 14.5 million Americans signed up for coverage in 2021. But the more generous financial assistance to cover, which was included in the bills for assistance in connection with COVID-19, will end by the end of this year, and Mr. Biden’s efforts to expand coverage through his social spending legislation have stalled in Congress.
