Covered California: You Still Have A Few Days to Sign Up

Nearly 474,000 people signed up for health insurance on Covered California, the state's marketplace, by the deadline Sunday night, officials announced today. But if you didn't sign up, you still have a chance.

As Covered California has done in the past, the agency is allowing a few extra days for those who have started the application process, but not yet finished. That extra time was announced last week.

On Tuesday, executive director Peter Lee added a couple more days to the deadline. Now people have until this Sunday to finish applications. The change aligns Covered California with a federal extension announced over the weekend.

In addition, Covered California will permit those who say they tried to start an application, but couldn't due to the crush of last minute enrollees, the extra time as well. But those people need to get in-person help.

"They need to go to CoveredCA.com," Lee said "and find a storefront or insurance agent in their community to help them." Many agencies across the state have announced extra hours this week.

Lee said he expects Covered California will reach its goal of 500,000 new enrollees by Sunday.

He also reiterated that the agency is considering a "special enrollment period" for people who did not know they would be subject to a tax penalty if they did not have health insurance. "We are in active discussions right now with the Franchise Tax Board, the Board of Equalization and with some of the major tax advisors in California. We have not decided to (have a special enrollment period), but we think there's a lot of merit and are giving it close consideration.

While new enrollees are on target, Covered California appears to have fallen short on renewals. But Lee said the agency had set the target months ago, at 1.2 million people eligible for renewal.

"It ended up being more like 1 million people," Lee said. Ultimately, about 944,000 people renewed, and almost all stayed with the same health plan.

Nicole Evans, spokesperson for the California Association of Health Plans, did not seem troubled by the change in the renewal estimates. She instead pointed to the high retention rate of health plans.

"For (insurers), knowing that 90 percent of their enrollees are sticking with their existing plan, that means there's stability in the market," she said, "and people are pleased with their coverage."

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, an advocacy group, said Lee's explanation of the fall off "seemed credible to me."

"I'm not surprised," Wright said. "but there's more work to be done to make sure people are leaving (Covered California) for the right reasons and not the wrong reasons, but I agree with their assessment -- there's a lot of churn in the individual market."