Stores selling Obamacare policies popping up across California
Source: LA Times
With enrollment deadlines looming, California officials, insurance companies and agents are staking out retail space to sign up thousands of people as part of the Affordable Care Act. These sales tactics reflect how dramatically the healthcare law is changing the insurance industry.
Until recently, most health insurance companies and agents didn't put much time into selling policies to individuals and focused more on catering to employers and large groups in the workplace. But the health insurance mandate and billions of dollars in federal premium subsidies have made individual policies a far more attractive market.
* * *
The Covered California exchange has posted solid enrollment since opening Oct. 1, primarily through its website and call centers. It has signed up nearly 80,000 people in private health plans through Nov. 19 and an additional 135,000 people have applied for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for the poor.
But the exchange estimates that about 80% of people will want in-person help to figure out their insurance options. Rather than set up storefronts itself, Covered California has focused more on training people who then go out to farmers markets and health fairs to promote the exchange and do enrollment.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exchange-retail-20131128,0,380583.story#axzz2ltqx9x4E
California is leaving Texas in the dust when it comes to implementing the ACA and addressing the needs of those who lacked access to affordable healthcare coverage, so Rick Perry can suck it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
