If there’s a state that’s key to the success of the ACA, it is California. Peter Lee, Exec Dir of Covered California (the Golden State’s exchange) gave a status update.
Lee reported enrollment in insurers via CC is right about a million people – and this doesn’t include the Medicaid expansion. Looks like about 20,000 are signing up per day of late.
Here are the highlights.
– success is predicated on providing affordable health plans – and there are several plans available in each area, with some having a dozen or more options.
– about 26% of enrollees are in the 18-34 demographic; Lee sees this as a work-in-progress, and considers them the “Young Convincibles”.
– CA is an “active purchaser”, which means they carefully oversaw the health plan bidding process to ensure the plans available on the exchange were comprehensive, affordable, and many.
– about 2 million will get subsidies to buy health insurance
– LOTS of marketing, outreach, advertising, partnering with agencies. But the most effective part has been via community organizations.
– enrollment has been greatly aided by facilitators.
– a lot of analysis will continue to assess outcomes, access, and disparities by different demographic group, and Covered California will move past the enrollment phase and into the improvement phase over time.
