Health insurance seekers who were frustrated in their last-minute attempts to sign up at Covered California have a reprieve.
The California Obamacare operation announced the selective extensions a day after the Dec. 23 deadline for signups.
“If you started an application Dec. 23, but haven’t completed it, you now have until Friday, Dec. 27, at 8 p.m. to finish for coverage starting on Jan.,” Covered California said on its Facebook page.
There’s a catch: Applications can’t be finished online. Consumers will have to call the Covered California service center — expect a lengthy wait — or work through counselors or agents.
Covered California officials had said earlier that they’d push through anyone caught in the deadline crush, assuming they’d made a “good-faith effort” to enroll.
California has its own web site. Shoppers on the federal site, HealthCare.gov, were given an extra day (Dec. 24) to sign up. Then, on that final day, the Obama administration offered help for those who tried and failed to enroll due to “issues with our systems.” “If this happened to you, don’t worry — we still may be able to help you get covered as soon as January,” the HealthCare.gov advisory said.
On the California operation’s Facebook page, “certified” insurance agents were actively soliciting business from those frustrated by the signup process. One of the agents complained that she should have heard of the extension from Covered California instead of the news media.
The deadlines apply to coverage that’s set to begin Jan. 1. Payments are due by Jan. 6. The open enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage continues through the end of March, however.
Customers who buy insurance policies through Covered California won’t be getting extra time to make their first premium payments. The deadline for payments on policies that begin Jan. 1 remains Jan. 6, the state said last week.
Covered California, meanwhile, posted its Obamacare stats for the week ending Dec. 21, with web site “unique” visits at 760,694.
Service center call wait times were at their historic worst, north of 43 minutes. Total calls for the week were put at just over 100,000.
The number of enrollment applications that were begun was reported at 867,665 (compared with 689,477 through Dec. 14).
The soaring signups mean the California Affordable Care Act insurance exchange is on track to exceed its projections of enrolling 500,000-700,000 people by the end of late March.
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