Website may not be ready to go at beginning of enrollment period

by Brian Leubitz

The California individual health care exchange comes online on October 1, whether the website is ready or not. But it looks like “not” may be more likely:

“We have not made that call yet,” said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, which is implementing the federal health law in the state. If online enrollment isn’t immediately available, Lee said, there would be other ways to sign up through call centers, enrollment counselors and agents before coverage kicks in Jan. 1. “The date we care about is Jan. 1 when coverage takes effect.” (LA Times)

You can actually buy these exchange policies in a number of ways, including directly through the insurance provider. However, given how web-centric we are these days, that is obviously the easiest option. While other states are also having problems, you would have hoped we could have been the model state to get everything ready to go.

However, minor annoyances aside, and despite this not being a long-term solution like single payer, Covered California is still a step in the right direction.