500,000 Californians enrolled into health plans, but many still stay away

Source: Daily News, Los AngelesJan.迷你倉 22--Half a million people enrolled into private health care plans through Covered California in its first three months, with 85 percent of them receiving tax subsidies to help pay for coverage, according to state data released Tuesday.The latest figures for October through December show about half of all who have enrolled are between the ages of 45 to 64 and are white. The data also show that nearly 28 percent of California residents who identify themselves as Asian also enrolled.Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield California and Kaiser Permanente were the top three plans chosen.State officials said they were pleased with the enrollment figures so far and believed they could reach their goals of adding between 487,000 and 696,000 subsidy-eligible Californians into health care by March 31.But enrolling the younger uninsured and Latinos remains both challenging and important to implementation of the Affordable Care Act, said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California.Of the so called "young invincibles" or those 18 to 34 years old, 24 percent were enrolled into policies. And of the 395,614 who listed their ethnicity, about 20 percent were Latino, Lee said.Lee and others have said for the health care reform to succeed nationally, California must lead in implementing the ACA."We're in the process of both fine-tuning the way we assess our enrollment demographics and, more importantly, building on our focus to ensure that more Latinos apply for and enroll in coverage," Lee said. "We have much work to do over the next three months to build on our outreach to this important population and help those who have applied complete the process."Focus groups with Latinos were conducted and the results will be used to improve campaigns for the community, said Covered California spokeswoman Anne Gonzalez. One criticism has been that Spanish language enrollment forms were not immediately available after Covered California launched enrollment in October."We unveiled the Spa自存倉ish-language paper application at the beginning of the month, and we expect that to substantially boost enrollment among Latinos in the last half of our enrollment period," Gonzalez said. "Covered California is currently improving the Spanish language website. We're also trying to find ways to drive Latinos to brick-and-mortar locations for in-person assistance, such as county offices, where they can enroll in Covered California plans or Medi-Cal."Even after aggressive enrollment efforts end, an estimated 3 million to 4 million Californians will remain uninsured according to some published reports and studies.About 1 million of those are undocumented, and under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, excluded from participating.Earlier this month, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Long Beach, said he planned to introduce legislation that would expand access to health care coverage to anyone in California, regardless of immigration status.U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas D-Arleta, said amending the federal law to include those who are undocumented is unlikely in the near future."Unfortunately, because of politics, those who are undocumented were not included in the ACA," Cardenas said. "I think it's critical for this community as a whole, documented or undocumented, to have access to insurance because in this country, if you're using the emergency department as your doctor, everyone is paying for it and it's expensive. Too many American citizens are using the emergency room as their primary care system. It's burdening the hospitals."Among residents who qualify to apply for health plans, there is fear and distrust, Cardenas said."The challenge is getting them off the negativity ledge," Cardenas said. "There's been so much banter about how this is a horrible law, that this isn't going to work. The bottom line is there's a tremendous amount of skepticism."Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the Daily News (Los Angeles) Visit the Daily News (Los Angeles) at .dailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉出租