On hold for Covered California

Waiting times to get help from the Obamacare operation in California remain near peak levels, with phone callers on hold for an average of more than 49 minutes in the latest reporting period. The worst reported wait times were in the previous period -- the final days of signup for insurance coverage to begin Jan. 1 -- with callers on hold for an hour. Calls of up an hour and a half have been reported. The shortest wait times since ... (More)

SF, L.A. top Obamacare signups

Counties in the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions accounted for almost half of healthcare insurance signups in the first two months of Obamacare operation in California. The Bay Area signed a much higher percent of those eligible for subsidies than Los Angeles County, which lagged the state in percentage terms despite signing up the most people, officials said. The regional breakdowns for October and November were released in ... (More)

December rush for Covered Cal

Phone calls and web visits to California's health insurance exchange are rising at a furious pace as the Dec. 23 deadline for sign-ups looms. "We are experiencing a high volume of phone calls at this time," the Covered California web site now warns on its home page. "We truly appreciate your patience." Calls to the state insurance marketplace topped out at almost 144,000 for the week ending Dec. 7, by far the most calls since the ... (More)

SHOP delay doesn’t affect California

Covered California has begun offering online enrollments to small businesses, unaffected by the one-year delay in signups suffered by the federal Obamacare site. The Covered California site underwent a scheduled outage of its enrollment functionality over the weekend ending Nov. 25 and will officially unveil the small-business health insurance service Monday. The California exchange's Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), ... (More)

Insurance deadline now Dec. 23

The deadline for enrollment in Covered California policies that take effect Jan. 1 has been rolled back a week, to Dec. 23. The state Obamacare operation announced Nov. 21 that shoppers in the individual insurance marketplace would get more time to sign up for its health insurance policies. The deadline for first payments also has been pushed back, to Jan. 5. Covered California said the move was part of its efforts "to sustain, ... (More)