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This is only meaningful to people on Medicare or Medicaid because Executive Orders only give the President the power to guide federal agencies (in the executive branch).
It's a rather meaningless gesture to be honest. If a President can do something via EO then another President can undo it just as easily.
From medicaid.gov "93,373,794 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in the 50 states and the District of Columbia that reported enrollment data for February 2023."
Seems like a fair number of people.
It also includes some of the most vulnerable and low income people in the country. People who cannot afford the care for a healthy pregnancy, let alone raising the resulting child(ren), and those who are in situations where they're at high risk of being raped, like the unhoused. Even if it doesn't affect my access, I'm pleased that the folks who need this coverage can access it.
An estimated 50% of those are women (who tend to benefit the most from easy contraception). Additionally, these individuals are often poorer, and, as a result, disproportionately of minority populations. Not only is it a fair number of people, but also the people that need the help the most.
Another 63 million on Medicare and yet it's still a bandaid on a gaping wound that might get ripped off any minute.
Still worth doing IMO
It’s all he can do. Do you think the Republicans are going to accept that? How can they push back women’s rights to a point in which they were just baby machines that cooked if they can choose not to be pregnant?
He could be doing a lot more to make contraceptives and even abortion accessible on land under Federal Jurisdiction. He wants to play by the "rules" though.
There's nothing stopping him from using executive and federal power in this way except his own fears and a desire to be "normal" at a time when the United States teeters on complete backsliding to it's worst policies in history.
Executive power is very dangerous. Just look what happened when control of the internet was given to the FCC in the name of net neutrality. Executive orders are how the US ends up with a dictator.
A shame Obama didn't act when he had a supermajority, but he didn't. He was too busy making health care even more expensive.
Why are we relying on politicians to help out our neighbors?
You're purposefully trying to downplay impact without any factual support. It's harder to take away benefits from people than it is to give them. Let the next R president (that of course won't win the popular vote) try to remove access and take that L with the centrist suburban swing state female voters that often influence elections.
This isn't an end all be all solution, but it's FAR from a meaningless gesture.
Factual support that executive orders are easy to undo? EOs aren’t law… they are orders to federal agencies on how they are to operate. It’s as easy as writing a letter and signing it..
Here is a list of things Biden did on day 1.
Here is one of the day 1 EOs undoing Trumps previous orders
No... I was obviously referring to you providing no support of your claim that this will have little/no impact. As others have rightly pointed out, this will impact about 100 million Americans for the next year+ at least. An EO is permission for government workers to do more. It's guidance for regulatory agencies and lawyers to show teeth with the full support of the white house. It does mean something, it's also not a magic pen and paper. But many are better off four-day than they were yesterday and hopefully that increases with time.
Nobody claimed this was the one single and final fix for every one of the ills of society, but that seems to be the strawman you're responding to.
I’ve made no such claim…
A meaningless gesture is a statement intended to make you feel better about the situation without solving the problem. You might also call it a symbolic gesture or a token gesture.
All I’ve said here is it’s not enough.
There is a HUGE delta between "meaningless" and "not enough".
You can attempt to spin all you'd like, but people can read your comments and draw their own conclusions.
its not a meaningless gesture for the millions of people for whom this protects access to affordable contraception. i agree, this isn't enough, we need more robust protections for this kind of care, but whenever people say shit like this, i have to wonder if you've ever been in a position where you've needed medicare or medicaid. if you've ever required assistance from the government. its seems to me an incredible display of privilege to hold so closely to political ideals while actual human beings are being given material resources to improve their lives and safeguard their health. its not enough, but for the people who need it, measures like this might save actual human lives, and that is always worth it.
Baseless personal attacks… nice..
At least you understood I’m saying it’s not enough but maybe you missed the part that said
This is only meaningful to people on Medicare or Medicaid
mmh. i was pretty angry yesterday. don't really stand by that comment. sorry i assumed ill intent, i was reading too much into it. still think there's a bit of a point there, though. if its meaningful for people on medicare and medicaid, it isn't meaningless definitionally. it came off pretty dismissive to me.
I like this Biden guy, the US needs more presidents who do stuff like that.
I barely know what this guy is up to these days. It's such a departure from the last guy. I love it.
I don't know that I agree.
Would be really nice to have a progressive president that fights to get us health care, equal rights, and living wages to such an obscene degree as Trump did to ban Muslims. Instead, we have a president who makes promises and doesn't keep them, even when he has a majority for half of his term.
And when you hear he did something, your first response isn't "Oh God. What did he tweet out now? Did he declare war on a country? He declared war on a country because they criticized him, didn't he?!!!"
Couldn't agree more.
Honestly I voted “not Trump” but he wound up being a shockingly effective President.
Tbf since trump even a trash panda would make have a good impact on the US if it became president. Trump kind of stole our expectations of what a competent president should look like.
Biden wasn't my top pick in the primaries. (Bernie Sanders was.) When he was the nominee, I jumped on board because any issues I had with Biden paled in comparison with issues I had with Trump. I figured that Biden wouldn't be perfect but would be decent. He definitely hasn't been perfect, but even on his worst days he's been SOOOO much better than Trump on Trump's best days.
Good. Now do LGBTQ+ Rights next.
And fucking student loan debt.
he should be directing the DoE to be buying up as much privately-held student loans as possible, bringing them under federal control and thus more easily forgiven/repaid.
He has been. Did you already forget about the marriage law he passed not that long ago?
Yeah, I have to say Biden has been the most LGBTQ friendly president we have had so far. His marriage law basically saved my family a lot of stress.
Good for Biden.