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Biden Orders Expanded Health Care on Two Fronts

Ken Bredemeier

   U.S. President Joe Biden signed two orders expanding health care on
   Thursday, saying they would "undo the damage" of policies favored by
   his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

   Biden restored U.S. funding for foreign nongovernmental groups that
   give information to women about abortions, and also opened a special
   three-month enrollment period for uninsured Americans who now want to
   buy health insurance, as well as for those who lost their coverage
   because of the coronavirus pandemic.

   Trump, like past Republican presidents, had supported what critics have
   called the "global gag rule" on abortion information and had refused to
   reopen the government's market for health insurance under the
   Affordable Care Act.

   Biden's order also increased access to health care funding for
   impoverished Americans under a program called Medicaid.

   "There's nothing new that we're doing here," Biden said, other than to
   restore programs as they were before Trump changed them. Biden
   contended that Trump made them "more inaccessible, more expensiveand
   more difficult for people to qualify for."

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