Biden administration extends COVID-19 public health emergency through April

Abigail Adcox

January 11, 11:10 AM January 11, 11:10 AM

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The Biden administration has extended the COVID-19 public health emergency until April.

The public health emergency, which was set to expire Wednesday, will now remain in place through late spring, keeping millions of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program beneficiaries who were in jeopardy of losing their coverage enrolled for several more months.

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The emergency declaration was first declared in January 2020 and has been extended in increments of 90 days since. The Biden administration has previously said it would inform states at least 60 days in advance of possible termination.

The emergency authorization has allowed vaccines, testing, and treatments to be offered for free throughout the pandemic. It also extends a practice that requires states to offer continuous enrollment for Medicaid and CHIP, public health insurance programs for low-income individuals, in order to receive additional federal funding, allowing some people who may have exceeded the income levels to qualify without a temporary or permanent lapse in coverage.

However, lawmakers have already reached a deal in last month’s year-end spending bill to allow states to begin removing ineligible people from Medicaid beginning in April.

Biden administration officials have reportedly been aiming to end the emergency declaration as soon as this spring, though a decision has not been finalized. The Biden administration has been warning for months that it has been running low on funding for COVID-19 vaccine doses and has started discussions with the private sector on how to transition the COVID-19 response to the commercial market.

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Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for keeping the emergency declaration in place, arguing that officials lack the justification to keep it in place or a plan to end it.

President Joe Biden himself declared the coronavirus pandemic “over” in an off-the-cuff remark during a 60 Minutes interview last year, noting that the country still has a “problem with COVID” but had returned largely to normalcy with large-scale events.