Covered California Launches Ad Campaign To Bolster Enrollment

On Monday, Covered California launched a $29 million advertising campaign to encourage uninsured Californians to sign up for coverage during the Affordable Care Act's third open enrollment period, which began Sunday, the San Francisco Business Times' "Bay Area BizTalk" reports.

Background

About 2.2 million uninsured Californians are eligible for either Covered California or Medi-Cal coverage, and officials hope to enroll between 295,000 to 450,000 additional consumers by 2016. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program (Rauber, "Bay Area BizTalk," San Francisco Business Times, 10/30).

In 2014, about 1.1 million Californians enrolled in coverage through the exchange, and 1.3 million were enrolled after the second open enrollment period. The third enrollment period started Nov. 1 and ends Jan. 31, 2016 (Seipel, San Jose Mercury News, 11/1).

Details of Ad Campaign

The ads "aim to motivate the uninsured to explore their options with Covered California," according to exchange spokesperson James Scullery.

The campaign will feature ads on TV, radio, print, direct mail, digital, social media, transit shelters and billboards. According to "Bay Area BizTalk," the TV ads will be aired in Cantonese, English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Meanwhile, the exchange will launch targeted efforts for:

• Asian Americans;
• Blacks;
• Hispanics; and
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals ("Bay Area BizTalk," San Francisco Business Times, 10/30).

According to Kaiser Health News, about 2.4% of Covered California enrollees are black, half of whom are eligible for subsidies, and 30% of enrollees are Latino, 37% of whom are eligible for subsidies.

Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said, "We know we've come up short in who's enrolled today," adding, "Of those who are still uninsured, we want to make sure we reach them" (Feder Ostrov, Kaiser Health News, 10/30).

Meanwhile, the exchange also launched a bus tour across the state to boost enrollment, the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" reports (Jamison, "L.A. Now," Los Angeles Times, 11/1).