LOS ANGELES – In efforts to ensure that they get health coverage by January 1, Californians rushed in December to enroll in health plans offered at Covered California, the state’s health plan marketplace.
During a press briefing, Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee said that more than half a million Californians signed up for health coverage through the health exchange, and another million through the expanded Medi-Cal.
The press briefing was held the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lee said that it was a great time to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy. Dr. King often said that of all the forms of injustice, inequality in health care is the most inhumane.
Enrollments tripled, quadrupled
Quoting preliminary reports, Lee said that from October 1 through January 14, nearly 1.8 million Californians have completed their applications through CoveredCA.com.
That number includes applications to determine eligibility for Medi-Cal, subsidies under Covered California, or to buy a plan in the individual market without being denied coverage.
During the first month of open enrollment, October 2013, there were 31,830 people who enrolled in health plans offered by CoveredCA.com. For November, that grew to 78,377. And in December, the number of enrollees ballooned to 400,096 – four times as many as the enrollees for the first two months combined.
Health exchange officials believe that this surge was a result of consumers rushing to enroll in time to get coverage by January 1, 2014.
“The momentum that we saw in the end of last year is still going strong,” Lee added.
In the first two weeks of January 2014, approximately 125,000 people enrolled. That’s more people in the first two weeks of January that signed up than during the first two months of the open enrollment period.
That brings the total number of enrollees to about 625,000 individuals.
According to Lee, the late surge in December means that some people do wait until the last minute to sign up. The deadline to enroll for Jan. 1, 2014 coverage was on Dec. 23, 2013.
It also means that there is “a lot of momentum” in enrollment and that more Californians are getting the message that coverage is there for them, Lee added.
Because of Obamacare, Lee said, another 584,000 were deemed likely eligible for the expanded Medi-Cal, and another 630,000 are being transitioned from Low Income Health Plans to Medi-Cal. That’s already top of the over half a million enrollees in Covered California health plans.
Diverse plan choices
Among the enrollees from October to December, 85 percent were qualified for subsidized coverage under Covered California, while the remaining 15 percent opted to go with non-subsidized plans in the health exchange.
Of consumers eligible for subsidies, a great number (66 percent) of them selected Silver Tier coverage packages, while 21 percent selected Bronze. The Silver Tier, according to Lee, is not only where people can get a break in their premium, but also where they can get a significant financial support that lets them pay as low as $3 per clinic visit.
Among the individuals who are not eligible for subsidized packages, many are selecting plans from across the board – from Bronze, to Silver, to Gold, to Platinum.
“You see a very different mix of what people are picking, if they’re eligible for subsidy or if they’re paying out of pocket,” Lee said.
“These numbers show a continued demand for the subsidies and support, but they also show that consumers are understanding their options and are making good choices,” Lee added.
Reaching out to the youth
One of the population segments that Covered California aims to attract are the youths aged 18 to 34 years old. Lee said that there’s been a “big jump” in the number of young people signing up. Through December, a total of 125,000 people aged 18 to 34 signed up with Covered California. That’s 25 percent of the total enrollees in the system, an increased rate from 21 percent in the first two months.
Because 36 percent of all people eligible for subsidized coverage are aged between 18 to 34 years old, Lee said that Covered California will continue to outreach to the youth through social media and other avenues of communication to make sure that the “young invincibles” are also the “young convince-ables.”
Some health economists have claimed that the ideal number of youths enrolled in health care plans is 40 percent of the total population. This provides a good “risk mix” between the young (who are less likely to be sick) and the elderly (who are more likely to be sick).
While the 25 percent youths currently enrolled in the system may be far off from that number, Lee said that the health exchange is not worried because they recognize that the system is only in its early stages.
“This is a new thing for young people,” Lee said, “For many of them who [are no longer] on their parents’ policies, getting insurance [on their own] is a first time deal.”
He said that it could take a few years before they get to the ideal number of young people enrolled in the system. The health exchange executive said that they recognize that it will take “a bigger lift” to reach out to more youths.
Citing the Affordable Care Act, Lee said that the law specifically provides for financial mechanisms that assume that it takes two to three years to get a good risk mix.
“In the end, it’s not about the numbers. It’s about real people whose lives we’re touching,” Lee said. Santa Monica resident Julia Nichols is one such person. Nichols, 27, is the founder & CEO for nonprofit Do Right Industries.
Like most youths on their parents’ plans, Julia lost her coverage when she turned 26. For the most part of 2013, she held her breath hoping that she wouldn’t get into a car accident or have a medical emergency. And it started affecting her decisions – what job she would take, what path she was going to take in life and whether or not it came with health care.
“I work with nonprofits. And one of the things about working with nonprofits is that you can work a big organization that can write you a big paycheck or you can work with an organization that you might believe in that has two employees part-time and nobody’s making a lot of money,” she added.
Now having secured a subsidized health plan under Covered California, Nichols said that she is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have affordable health care.
“I hope more people my age take really advantage of the opportunity,” Nichols said.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend January 25-28, 2014 Sec A pg.1)
