New penalty, extended deadline drive increase in California health insurance sign-ups
New numbers released Tuesday show many more Californians signed up for health insurance this year than last year, even as state officials are extending the deadline for people to enroll in coverage.
California’s marketplace saw a 41 percent jump in new sign-ups from last year, from nearly 300,000 to more than 418,000. In total, over 1.5 million people signed up for or renewed insurance plans through the marketplace, known as Covered California.
State officials and advocacy groups attribute the jump in new enrollments to new state policies aimed at lowering insurance costs for some Californians and fining others who opt not to buy coverage.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers approved new subsidies for roughly 1 million low- and middle-income people. To pay for it, the state will fine people who don’t buy insurance through an “individual mandate,” a policy first implemented through the Affordable Care Act that has since been rolled back at the federal level.
The state also extended the deadline to sign up for coverage from Jan. 15 to Jan. 31.
The boost in new sign ups shows the penalty has worked as a “nudge” to prompt people to shop for insurance and the new subsidies helped people afford it, said Peter V. Lee, executive director of Covered California. But he said surveys his department has done show many still don’t know about the new state policies.
Open enrollment ended Jan. 31, but Covered California is creating a special enrollment period to allow people who didn’t know about the new policies to sign up for coverage through the end of April.
“Even though a lot of people signed up during open enrollment, we know a lot of people still don’t know about the penalty,” he said in a video released by Covered California. “If you’re a Californian that didn’t know about the penalty or didn’t know about new state subsidies, our doors are wide open.”
Those who sign up by March 31 can avoid the penalty entirely. Those who sign up during April will have to pay a pro-rated penalty of one-third the total annual fine, according to a Covered California fact sheet.
Although the new subsidies rely in part on revenue from the individual mandate, Lee said he would prefer that people buy insurance, which will lower costs across the board as healthier people pay into the system and offset costs from sicker people.
“We don’t want people to pay a penalty,” he said. “We want Californians to get insurance.”
People can sign up for insurance during the special enrollment period on coveredca.com or by calling 800-300-1506.
