California Exchange Goes Live

An imitation Washington DC license plate with Obamacare written on it and January 2014 stickers.  Words on the bottom Nation's Capital.
An imitation Washington DC license plate with Obamacare written on it and January 2014 stickers. Words on the bottom Nation’s Capital.
Despite the government shut down, the health exchanges did open to the public October 1, 2013. There were some initial glitches when the site went live most likely due to the unanticipated high volume of applicants. On the first day, there were 514,000 people that visited the Covered California website. However, unlike other critiques to the federal health exchange enrollment websites, California’s site did accomplish two key initiatives: the website allowed you to shop for health coverage while comparing prices and plans.

  • People choosing to enroll in the California exchange are given four tiers of coverage to elect: platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. The platinum tier offers the most benefits for the highest price while the bronze tier provides less benefits for a lower cost. If you are interested in learning which type of coverage is right for you, learn more here.

Federal exchange sites are also experiencing some issues that need to be worked out as quickly as possible. “The limited ability to enroll consumers is becoming an increasing focus of Obamacare’s Republican foes, who say the government wasn’t ready to implement the law and should have delayed it,” according to Reuters. The federal exchange platform Healthcare.gov hopes to model their site after “successful” state exchanges like California and Connecticut.

For more information on Covered California and the current state of the enrollment process, click here.

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