The special enrollment period for Americans to sign up for Affordable Care Act health plans will continue through Aug. 15, the Biden administration announced Tuesday.

The big picture: The administration already extended the enrollment period earlier this year after millions of people lost their health insurance coverage during the pandemic.

The pandemic year came with anxiety, fear, isolation, sadness and frustration. But we are close to making it to the other side.

• In the second installment of our COVID reflections project, we wanted to know how you survived — what brought you light and joy during a dark and difficult year.

What we learned: Your answers were filled with love, resilience and ingenuity.

Only the biggest subsidies through the Affordable Care Act improved families' overall financial well-being, according to a study published Monday in Health Affairs.

The big picture: Low-income families eligible for both premium subsidies and cost-sharing subsidies spent 17% less on out-of-pocket health care costs than unsubsidized enrollees. But the financial burden of health care costs didn't alleviate at all for middle-income families eligible only for premium subsdies.

The Biden administration will provide about $2.3 million to help bolster Affordable Care Act sign-ups in underserved communities, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Monday.

Why it matters: This funding for ACA "navigators" who provide in-person enrollment assistance will help uninsured Americans take advantage of the special enrollment window that opens later this month.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby believes that people will feel safe traveling again by this time next year, depending on the pace of vaccinations and the government's ongoing response to the pandemic, he said at an Axios virtual event.

Why it matters: Misery for global aviation is likely to continue and hold back a broader economic recovery if nothing changes, especially with new restrictions on international border crossings. U.S. airlines carried about 60% fewer passengers in 2020 compared with 2019.

Democrats' coronavirus relief proposal includes major changes to the Affordable Care Act, aiming to make health insurance more affordable for the millions of people who have lost their employer-based coverage during the pandemic.

The big picture: These changes would check off a whole lot of moderate Democrats' heath care agenda, at least temporarily. They include some of the biggest changes that President Biden campaigned on.

Nearly 15 million Americans who are currently uninsured are eligible for coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, and more than half of them would qualify for subsidies, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation brief.

Why it matters: President Biden is expected to announce today that he'll be reopening the marketplaces for a special enrollment period from Feb. 15 to May 15, but getting a significant number of people to sign up for coverage will likely require targeted outreach.

Most of the Affordable Care Act appeared likely to survive Tuesday as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the law’s individual mandate.

The big picture: Two members of the court’s conservative majority — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh — suggested they’re unlikely to throw out the entire health care law, as Republican attorneys general and the Trump administration have urged. Their votes would be enough to save it.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday over the future of the Affordable Care Act — the third time in eight years the ACA has been on the brink of life or death at the high court.

The big picture: For now, the smart money says that the court is likely to strike down what remains of the law’s individual mandate, but is unlikely to go along with the argument — advanced by both red states and the Trump administration — that the whole law has to fall along with it.

The likelihood of a Biden presidency and a closely divided Senate means that nothing big is likely to happen in health care for at least the next two years.

The big picture: For all the time Democrats spent debating Medicare for All, competing public insurance options and sweeping federal controls over drug prices, the near-term future for health policy will likely be about gridlock and incrementalism.