President-elect Joe Biden has included health insurance provisions in his American Rescue Plan package that he unveiled Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware.
The heart of the package are provisions that would speed up the COVID-19 vaccination effort; provide $1,400-per-person checks for typical households; expand unemployment benefits; and protect people with federally guaranteed mortgages from foreclosure until Sept. 30, 2021.
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In a package fact sheet sent to reporters, the Biden-Harris transition team says the health insurance provisions in the package would preserve and expand health coverage.
“Roughly two to three million people lost employer sponsored health insurance between March and September, and even families who have maintained coverage may struggle to pay premiums and afford care,” the Biden-Harris transition team says in the fact sheet. “Further, going into this crisis, 30 million people were without coverage, limiting their access to the health care system in the middle of a pandemic.”
Biden is calling for Congress to:
- Provide funding to pay to the COBRA coverage continuation premiums for workers who are losing access to employer-sponsored coverage. COBRA costs are high for workers because workers typically pay the full premiums for COBRA coverage rather than splitting the cost of the premiums with employers. The COBRA premium subsidy would last until Sept. 30.
- Expand eligibility for and increase the value of the Affordable Care Act health insurance premium tax credit subsidy, to keep anyone from having to pay more than 8.5% of income for coverage.
The Biden-Harris transition team estimates the proposals would reduce premiums for more than 10 million and keep millions of people from being uninsured.
The new package also includes provisions that could expand workers’ access to paid leave programs, and possibly, expand employers’ use of commercial family leave insurance and administration programs.
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