The Open Enrollment Period for obtaining Health Insurance under the Affordable Care Act ends March 31, 2014.
More than 1.7 million Californians have signed up since October 1st, according to the state exchange ,Covered California . At least approx. 630,000 applicants are eligible for federal tax subsidies. Another 877,000 Californians were determined to be eligible for Medi-Cal, the state health program for the poor.
The only key question no one has an answer yet to, is how many uninsured have signed up versus people who already had insurance and switched plans to either get subsidies or were forced to enroll as their old plans were discontinued. So the number of 1.7 million which Covered California published does not reflect the true number of the uninsured seeking insurance. The true goal of the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, was to cover the uninsured and no one has even yet a statistic of this crucial number.
The number of the “young invincibles” enrolling into the new health plans under the Affordable Care Act, which was set up to be 36 percent is as of now only 26 percent. This number is crucial for the success of the state exchange. The enrollment number of the young invincibles will help to balance the state exchange risk pool with the older and sicker enrollees.
Especially the number of enrollees of the young Latinos, is crucial for the increase of the young pool, as of now Covered California has not reached their goal in the Latino market , and is trying with aggressive marketing to increase the enrollment numbers. The 5 day downtime of the website of Covered California this months has not been helpful.
Solid Health Insurance Service will keep you updated on the newest information on the Affordable Care Act throughout Los Angeles and California.