Economy
PRESS ROOM: Jan. 15 is Final Deadline to Get Health Insurance With Financial Help Through Covered California
LOS ANGELES SENTINEL — The best way to ring in 2019 is by getting the peace of mind that comes with having health insurance for you and your family.
By Sentinel News Service
The best way to ring in 2019 is by getting the peace of mind that comes with having health insurance for you and your family.
Open enrollment for Covered California runs through Jan. 15, for coverage that begins on Feb. 1. As California’s health insurance marketplace, Covered California continues to deliver on the promises of the national Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Affordable Care Act), with 11 insurers serving Covered California consumers all over the state — 96 percent of whom can to choose from two insurers or more, while 82 percent of have three or more choices.
Covered California is the only place you can go to find out if you are eligible for financial help that lowers the price of your health coverage. The average member pays $5 a day for health insurance, with many paying much less. Go to CoveredCA.com to see if you qualify for financial help. It’s easy: Just click on the button that reads “Shop and Compare” and enter your ZIP code, your household income, the number of people who need insurance and their ages.
“There has been so much noise — and at times, plain disinformation — around the Affordable Care Act in the past year, but the important thing for consumers to know is that Covered California’s open enrollment will go through Jan. 15,” Executive Director Peter V. Lee said. “You still have time to sign up and get quality and affordable health coverage throughout 2019.”
If you’ve previously checked whether you qualified for Covered California’s financial help, check again. It only takes a few minutes, and you could end up discovering that you qualify for financial help assisting consumers in saving an average of 80 percent off their monthly health care costs. This health coverage has helped save people’s lives and protected consumers from financial devastation from medical bills that can reach tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, millions of dollars. We all know people who have lived without insurance or gone without adequate health care for too long. It doesn’t have to be that way. Help is out there, and now is the time to sign up for life-changing care.
You can get free and confidential enrollment assistance by visiting www.coveredca.com/find-help/ and searching among 700 storefronts statewide and the more than 16,000 certified enrollers who can assist consumers in multiple languages. In addition, consumers can also get help to enroll by calling the Covered California service center toll-free at (800) 300-1506.
This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
