📋 Tender Overview
U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin D-WI and Chris Murphy D-CT along with 26 Senate Democrats urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS to reopen the Affordable Care Acts online marketplace to allow more un- and under-insured Americans to get health insurance as they face potential health issues related to COVID-19. In a letter to Secretary Alex Azar the Senators urged HHS to allow Americans to enroll through a Special Enrollment Period SEP that should last throughout the duration of the pandemic in an effort to ensure comprehensive coverage for families and communities to protect themselves from COVID-related illness.The Senators wrote Currently millions of Americans are uninsured and anxious not only about what the possibility of contracting COVID-19 could mean for their health and that of their family but also for their financial stability. Opening up the ACA marketplace would provide an easy pathway to coverage for those who under previous circumstances may have decided to forego health insurance or purchase a substandard junk insurance plan but now in a global pandemic are in vital need of comprehensive coverage to protect themselves their families and our broader community.We believe opening an ACA SEP is the clearest way to cover the millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans in the 38 states that use the federal platform and to provide comprehensive protections for COVID-19-related treatment and prevention the Senators continued.The Senators concluded We urge you to put aside the partisan politics of the past and to expand health coverage to millions of Americans by opening an SEP expeditiously.
