Following a Biden administration executive order designed to expand access to health care plans, Connect for Health Colorado will reopen the state’s enrollment period for government-backed insurance, the agency announced.

The new enrollment window runs from Feb. 8 through May 15. Those who sign up will receive coverage the first day of the month following enrollment.

Colorado has its own health exchange but is piggybacking on the executive order that Biden signed Thursday directing HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits.

He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid.

“There’s nothing new that we’re doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was before Trump became president,” Biden said as he signed the directives in the Oval Office. He declared he was reversing “my predecessor’s attack on women’s health.”

The White House will begin a promotional campaign about the new open period.

The Biden administration has ample resources for marketing, said Karen Pollitz, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

The foundation estimates that the Trump administration left unspent about $1.2 billion in user fees collected from insurers to help pay for running the marketplaces.

“The reason it wasn’t spent is the Trump administration spent its time in office cutting services that support consumer enrollment,” Pollitz said. “All the while the user fee revenue was coming in, (but) they were not allowed to spend it on anything other than marketplace operations.”

Biden also ordered the immediate reversal of a federal policy that bars taxpayer funding for international health care nonprofits that promote or provide abortions. Known as the Mexico City Policy, it can be switched on or off depending on whether Democrats or Republicans control the White House. Abortion rights supporters call it the “global gag rule.”

Connect for Health Colorado said the extended sign-up period aims to help those who are uninsured enroll in coverage, especially for people who lost their work-based health insurance during the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coloradans typically have a 60-day window to sign up for health insurance in case of a life changing event such as losing a job, but now the extension on open enrollment will allow anyone who missed the deadline to sign up, Monica Caballeros, a spokeswoman for Connect for Health Colorado said.

“The state saw this as a good opportunity to piggy-back off the federal decision to extend enrollment and help Coloradans get health coverage,” Caballeros said.

During the 2021 enrollment period 180,000 Coloradans signed-up, which was a nearly an 8% increase compared to the previous year’s enrollment, the release noted.

“I am encouraged to see President Biden and his administration take action on this front, acknowledging the fact that so many remain without health insurance due to the continued impact of COVID-19,” Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway said in the release.

“The Division of Insurance will work with Connect for Health Colorado to make sure this additional enrollment period works to help Coloradans get covered.”

Coloradans can sign up for health insurance at ConnectforHealthCO.com or

call 855-752-6749 to get free enrollment help from certified brokers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.