Obamacare Archives - Northwest Public Broadcasting

President Biden Is Reopening ACA Enrollment. See If You’re Eligible To Sign Up Or Switch Plans

By NPR News February 15, 2021

In January, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to open up the federal health insurance marketplace for three months starting Monday so uninsured people can buy a plan and those who want to change their marketplace coverage can do so.Read More

Affordable Care Act Again Goes Before Supreme Court, Now With Amy Coney Barrett On Bench

By NPR News November 10, 2020

The Justice Department sent a letter in support of repealing the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. Here, a sign in support of the ACA in April 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is back before the Supreme Court, with opponents challenging it for a third time. The first attempts to derail the law failed in the high court by votes of 5-to-4 and 6-to-3. But the makeup of the court is very different now, with three justices appointed by President Trump – among them new Justice Amy Coney Barrett.Read More

Supreme Court Restricts Access To Birth Control Under Affordable Care Act

By NPR News July 8, 2020

U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. CREDIT: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The opinion upheld a Trump administration rule that significantly cut back on the Affordable Care Act requirement that insurers provide free birth control coverage under almost all health care plans.Read More

Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare Must ‘Fall,’ Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court

By NPR News June 26, 2020

Later this year, the high court will hear a case that seeks to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act. In a court filing Thursday, the Trump administration fully supported the move.Read More

How Tea Party Budget Battles Left The National Emergency Medical Stockpile Unprepared

By NWPB News April 5, 2020

File photo. Don Wood, an official with the Strategic National Stockpile, awaits another truck load of medications in Salt Lake City, Utah during a swine flu outbreak from the H1N1 virus in 2009. The pandemic that year prompted the largest use to date of the stockpile, which was created in 1999. It has never confronted anything on the scale of the current COVID-19 pandemic. CREDIT: Francisco Kjolseth/AP

Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending.Read More

Idaho’s Proposition 2 Puts Medicaid Expansion To Voters After State Lawmakers Refused

By NWPB News November 3, 2018

Amy Pratt personally collected more than 1,000 signatures to help get Proposition 2 on the ballot. It's the first time she's been politically active and she has no plans of stopping. CREDIT: JAMES DAWSON / BSPR

After years of inaction by the Idaho legislature on the state's healthcare gap, Proposition 2 on the state ballot gives Idahoans the chance to say whether they want Medicaid expansion -- a proposal endorsed by outgoing Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.Read More

Northwest Governors Condemn House Republican Healthcare Vote

By Austin Jenkins May 4, 2017

The Democratic governors of Washington and Oregon are condemning the Republican vote in the U.S. Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.Read More