As shoppers hunt for holiday bargains this season, they may find something unusual for sale at the mall: Obamacare.
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.
California's health insurance exchange and other government-run marketplaces are rushing to sign up people by Dec. 23, the deadline to have coverage in effect Jan. 1. Open enrollment lasts until March 31.
A state lawmaker and union organizers last week opened a mall store in a predominantly African American area of Los Angeles. In Orange County, insurance agents are signing up dozens of people each week at Laguna Hills Mall, and healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente has rented five retail locations in Northern California to sell exchange policies.
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.
Via: LA Times
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