Thousands of people have signed up for health insurance at Covered California – the state’s health-care exchange created under the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” – since open enrollment began on Oct. 1, according to state health officials in a blog posted on CoveredCA.com on Monday.
But more than three weeks after the exchanges opened, as of Monday, only one person in San Benito County had managed to sign up for the exchanges by telephone, according to Sam Trevino, a public information officer for the Department of Social Services in Salinas. That sign-up occurred via telephone through the 800 number listed on the website. The number of people who actually sign up online will be not available until November, according to state officials.
Since San Benito is a smaller market, Monterey County officials are handling calls from San Benito County residents interested in signing up for healthcare over the new exchanges.
Both the federal website, healthcare.gov, and California’s website, CoveredCa.com, have been criticized for wide-spread glitches such as log-in problems and long processing times, among other problems.
According to a press release from Covered CA, nearly 1.5 million unique visitors checked out the CoveredCA.com website since the first week, but only about 29,000 Californians were determined eligible for coverage under the exchanges. More than 94,000 applications were started on the website, according to another press release from Oct. 18. The number of people who actually signed up for the exchanges and completed the enrollment process is not available at this time. Over 100,000 phone calls were made to service centers around the state, such as to the call center in Monterey County.
In San Benito County, only one organization, the Mariposa Tax and Business Center, has three certified enrollment assistors – or counselors who have been trained by the state to help guide customers through the Covered CA sign-up process.
The center hasn’t been able to go online yet because it is having a hard time connecting to the website, according to an official at the center.
President Obama on Monday acknowledged issues with the websites, but encouraged consumers to sign up over the phone. California stressed a commitment to transparency in the process.
“Covered California is committed to sharing information and will continue to report weekly on the numbers of visits to our website and the number of consumer calls to our Service Centers,” executive director of Covered California Peter V. Lee said, in a statement.
Health insurance benefits are scheduled kick in on Jan. 1, according to state health officials. Open enrollment continues until March 2014.
