The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, frequently referred to simply as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, established an entirely new component of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service called the Ready Reserve Corps. Just as with the Reserve forces of the Armed Forces the United States, the Ready Reserve Corps was created to ensure that additional Commissioned Corps personnel were available to serve on short notice, be it in response to a disaster or emerging medical crisis or simply to fill manpower shortages that can arise during the delivery of normal public-health services handled by the Commissioned Corps.
To differentiate officers in the Regular Corps from those in the Ready Reserve, the Regular Corps Ribbon (RCR) was established and awarded to any Regular Corps officer called to active duty after March 23, 2010 provided they have completed the Officer Basic Course. The ribbon was also automatically awarded to offers who were on active duty following that date, as well as those Reserve Corps officers who had been assimilated in the Regular Corps before that date.