Covered California Gives Until April 15 to Finish Applications in Progress

The deadline for Covered California applications is fast approaching: midnight on March 31.

The state is still strongly encouraging people to finish by that time. However, on Wednesday, Covered California announced that if you have an application in the works by March 31, you will have until April 15 to complete it.

Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said health exchange enrollment has been surging ahead of the deadline.

This Monday and Tuesday, more than 39,000 people opened accounts and went all the way through to plan selection. That's more than in the whole month of October, he said.

Lee said he expects the computer systems to hold up fine.

"If we’re seeing a systemic problem, we’ll address it in a systemic way. If we see individual problems, we’ll address them on an individual basis," he said.

[Related: Obamacare Explained -- Just for Californians]

The announcement from Covered California follows a similar one yesterday by the federal government. U.S. officials said they would extend the deadline for people looking to buy insurance on the federal exchange if they begin an application by March 31.

A note for procrastinators out there -- April 15 is not only the Covered California deadline but also Tax Day.