Biden administration seeks to expand health coverage to Dreamers

Proposal would allow Daca participants to access health insurance under Medicaid and Affordable Care Act exchanges

The Biden administration is seeking to allow immigrants known as Dreamers, who were brought to the US as children by undocumented parents, greater access to health insurance through federal programs, the White House said on Thursday.

The proposal would allow participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or Daca, to access to health insurance under Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges, it said.

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Obama calls Biden ‘vice-president’ on return to the White House – video

Barack Obama jokingly referred to Joe Biden as 'vice-president' on his return to the White House for the first time since 2017. The 44th president was there to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and offered Biden a potential boost ahead of the midterm elections

  • Back to the future as Obama sprinkles some stardust on Biden White House
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‘Feels like the good old days’: Joe Biden welcomes Barack Obama back to White House – as it happened

  • Former president returns to mark 12 years of Affordable Care Act
  • Confirmation week continues for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
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Ivanka Trump will testify before the January 6 committee this afternoon.

The Guardian confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, will speak to the panel virtually.

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Senator forced to backtrack after saying Republicans will repeal Obamacare

Ron Johnson’s statement about scrapping Affordable Care Act if GOP wins control of Congress seen as open goal for Democrats

The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson said Republicans should try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act if they take back power – then retreated, under fire from the Biden administration.

Speaking to Breitbart News, a far-right site, on Monday, Johnson said Republicans could “actually make good on what we established as our priorities” if they won control of Congress in midterms this year and the presidency in 2024.

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Harry Reid obituary

Veteran Nevada senator who shepherded and protected Obamacare on its difficult passage into law

During a long, combative career in US political life, Harry Reid, who has died aged 82, made his most telling contribution as Democrat majority leader in the Senate. There, in 2010, he pushed through and then vigorously defended President Barack Obama’s groundbreaking healthcare reforms.

Given the huge strength of Republican feeling against “Obamacare”, the president needed a streetfighter to drive his measures through to the statute book – and Reid was the man for the job. Quietly spoken but toughened by a hard early life and years spent swimming in the shark-infested waters of Nevada politics, he fought through the deeply polarised atmosphere that surrounded Obama’s health reforms to shepherd the Affordable Care Act through the Democrat-controlled Senate.

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US supreme court upholds Obamacare after Republicans seek to gut law

Justices affirm constitutionality of Affordable Care Act amid Republican attacks on key provision

The US supreme court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, after Republicans attempted to gut an important provision of the law during the Trump era.

In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled Republican states ultimately did not have “standing” or the right to sue. The ruling avoided the issue of whether the tax provision of the law called the “individual mandate”, and therefore the entire law, was unconstitutional.

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The Ten Year War review: Obamacare, Trump and Biden’s battles yet to come

Jonathan Cohn’s study of the fight for healthcare coverage delivers depth, dish and much for Democrats to ponder

Once upon a time, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was unpopular, viewed by many as welfare redux. Barack Obama’s promise that “If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan”, didn’t exactly work out. By the middle of the 2010s, so-called Obamacare had cost the Democrats both houses of Congress.

Related: The Good American review: Bob Gersony and a better foreign policy

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Conservative US supreme court justices suggest Obamacare will be upheld

Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts indicated law could be upheld even if court deems one part of it unconstitutional

Two conservative supreme court justices have suggested the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could be upheld, as oral arguments began in a suit backed by the Trump administration which threatens the healthcare of millions amid a global pandemic.

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Joe Biden says Trump’s refusal to concede defeat ‘an embarrassment’ – live

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has drafted “anti-mob” legislation that would expand the state’s Stand Your Ground Law that would allow citizens to shoot anyone they suspect is engaged in looting, the Miami Herald reports.

The legislation is a reaction to anti-police brutality, The Herald’s Ana Ceballos and David Ovalle report:

“It allows for vigilantes to justify their actions,” said Denise Georges, a former Miami-Dade County prosecutor who had handled Stand Your Ground cases. “It also allows for death to be the punishment for a property crime — and that is cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot live in a lawless society where taking a life is done so casually and recklessly.”

The draft legislation put specifics behind DeSantis’ pledge in September to crack down on “violent and disorderly assemblies” after he pointed to “reports of unrest” in other parts of the country after the high-profile death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Since election day, Donald Trump and other Republicans have filed a smattering of lawsuits in battleground states that have provided cover for Trump and other Republicans to say that the election still remains unresolved.

Legal experts have noted these suits are meritless, and even if they were successful, would not be enough to overturn the election results. Indeed, judges in several of these lawsuits have already dismissed them, noting the Trump campaign has failed to offer evidence to substantiate allegations of fraud.

Related: Trump's longshot election lawsuits: where do things stand?

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Supreme court to hear Obamacare case that may lead to 20m losing insurance

Court will hear a case a week after election day that could result in the law being overturned – or only one provision eliminated

For more than a decade, Republicans have sought to destroy the signature achievement of the Obama administration – the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Exactly one week after election day, they might succeed.

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