Covered California Expands Deadline to Enroll

By 2AM April 1st, there were 1.2 million Californians enrolled in the exchange. However, the late night surge in applicants attempting to enroll in Covered California by the March 31st deadline caused the website to crash and stall repeatedly. Officials have decided to allow consumers to enroll in person with agents or on the phone until April 15th.

“Peter Lee, the executive director for Covered California, said during a teleconference late Monday that the deadline was not being extended. Rather, he said the state exchange was relying on the honor system to allow Californians one more chance to sign up.”

Officials feel that they have an obligation to give people who were trying to enroll a chance to get the health insurance they want. Some argue that people shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to get covered, while others feel that the website should be able to withstand a high volume of applications and Californians should not be penalized because of that.

Even today, the website is slower than usual despite the “Preview Plans” option being removed from the interface. Wait times to get ahold of a Covered California representative are about 40 minutes long so be patient.

If you have any questions about whether you are still eligible to get covered under the exchange, please feel free to give us a call. Visit the Covered California website to get covered by April 15th.