Covered California Bus Tour Concludes, but Outreach Continue
On Thursday, Covered California wrapped up its 38-stop bus tour to encourage residents to sign up for health coverage, but efforts to boost enrollment will continue through the end of the exchange's third open enrollment period on Jan. 31, 2016, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports (Colliver, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 11/12).
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.
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 (California Healthline, 11/2).
Covered California's Outreach Efforts
The bus tour traveled a total of about 2,000 miles and ended with a stop in Sacramento on Thursday.
According to a release, the exchange "will continue to spotlight the fact that open enrollment continues through Jan. 31" (Covered California release, 11/12).
Earlier this month, Covered California launched a $29 million advertising campaign to bolster enrollment. 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. The TV ads will be aired in Cantonese, English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Vietnamese (California Healthline, 11/2).
In addition, the exchange has more than 500 storefront locations across the state for enrollment assistance -- twice as many as there were at the beginning of the second open enrollment period (Covered California release, 11/12).
But some stakeholders say enrolling more residents could be a challenge.
Larry Levitt, a senior vice president for the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, "This may be a period where it's not yet embedded in the culture, but there's not the excitement of the launch" (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 11/12).
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