Covered California hits the road to promote health plan

Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, stopped in San Diego Tuesday midway through a 13-city, 23-stop promotional bus tour.

His goal: to fight a big change in federal health policy change that allows people to skip health insurance without paying a penalty next year.

With San Diego Bay in the background, Lee took a temporary stage on the mezzanine at the San Diego Convention Center and noted that, though the health insurance exchange currently covers 1.4 million Californians, there are many more who qualify but haven’t signed up. That number is estimated to be about 100,000 in San Diego County alone.

He noted that those who have been covered by the policies his organization sells saw a total of 22,000 broken or dislocated arms or shoulders and more than 50,000 cancer diagnoses last year, hinting at the “life can change in an instant” theme of this year’s tour.

“Not one of those people that got a cancer diagnosis, not one of those people that broke a leg thought, ‘oh, this is the year that I’m going to break a leg, this is the year I’m going to get cancer,’’ Lee said.

Before his speech, Lee said that his organization projects that the Trump administration’s decision in 2017 to do away with the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate,” the requirement that most Americans must buy health insurance if they don’t have it or pay a penalty, is going away in 2018.

Unlike most health insurance exchanges in the United States, Covered California, because it is independent and not operated by the federal government, did not see its marketing budget cut this year and plans to spend upwards of $100 million this fall getting the word out just as it has in previous years.

Tuesday’s appearance in San Diego came as the American Public Health Association was nearing the end of its 2018 annual meeting inside the convention center and Georges Benjamin, the organization’s executive director, stepped out on the terrace to make it clear that Covered California’s work has been noticed beyond the Golden State.

“California is leading the way. You folks have shown all of us around the nation what you can do by rolling up your sleeves and getting people covered,” Benjamin said.

The Covered California tour bus was headed for Palm Desert and Riverside after departing San Diego.

Covered California open enrollment continues through Jan. 15 though those who wish to have their coverage start on Jan. 1 must select a plan by Dec. 15.