HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra: “Take advantage of what is being offered” during open enrollment
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has a message for eligible, uninsured Latinos who still have not enroll in healthcare coverage: “Take advantage of what is being offered.”
“You sign up before Dec. 1. Your coverage will begin Jan. 1. Don’t delay. Have that peace of mind if you ultimately need to take your child, your loved one to the hospital,” Becerra said.
Becerra was in California Monday (Nov. 1) to kick off open enrollment across the country for the 2022 coverage year and encourage Americans to get covered.
Becerra also highlighted Biden-Harris administration efforts – from an open-enrollment campaign to record-low prices to more choices and 30 more days to pick a plan – to reduce health care costs during a press conference in Sacramento with other state leaders.
“It’s great to be in a state that really launched on the Affordable Care Act, took it seriously and has helped more Americans get covered than any other state in the nation,” said Becerra, adding that as a former member of congress from Los Ángeles, the rate of uninsured in his former congressional district went down more than any congressional district in the state of California.
The open-enrollment period began with a record-high 12.2 million people enrolled in the federal and state marketplaces, including 1.6 million in Covered California. The increased enrollment has been driven by the new and expanded financial help available through the American Rescue Plan, as part of the landmark federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession it sparked.
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Becerra has played a key role in every aspect of the Affordable Care Act.
“As a member of Congress, he helped establish the law. As California’s attorney general, he helped defend the law. Now, as secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, he is leading the charge to get more Americans enrolled and to improve the Affordable Care Act as the nation moves toward true universal coverage,” said Peter V. Lee, executive director of Covered California, the state-based insurance marketplace.
Becerra said parents shouldn’t be thinking if they are going to go bankrupt if their child gets sick and have to go to the hospital.
“The only thing that you should be thinking about when your child needs to go to an emergency room, to a doctor, to a hospital is ‘Am I getting the best care possible?’ Not can I afford to do this,” Becerra said of the administration’s focus that healthcare in America should be a right and not a privilege. “That’s where we are heading.”
“The most important thing is I can tell you is, get on the website for Covered California. You want to save money at a time when you keep you see prices going up for other things. Guess what? The price of health care, especially under places like Covered California, is actually going down,” Becerra said.
The work is not done
Becerra said the work is not done as there are still too many Americans – including a good number of Californias who still lack a good coverage – who qualify to for the ACA.
An estimated 1.1 million uninsured – including 115,000 people in the San Joaquín Central Valley, Eastern Kern area – are eligible for financial help, with the vast majority able to coverage at no cost through either Covered California or Medi-Cal.
“Our job is to get out there. So, what are we doing? We are quadrupling the number of navigators, the people who help you understand what the plans offer and which one to select four times as many navigators will be out there to help,” Becerra said. “We want you to select the right plan.”
Bacerra said there are more plans, more options for coverage than ever before with more providers.
“We’re going to make sure we reach everyone,” Becerra said of the efforts in several other languages besides English and Spanish as well putting additional “trusted voices out there that will help us” including nonprofits, community leaders in California. “We are going to where people are. We’re not waiting for them to come to us.”
“We are constantly trying to reach out to more and more populations to make sure they understand what opportunities they have,” Becerra said.
While open enrollment for the two thirds of the nation served by the federal marketplace healthcare.gov goes until Jan. 15, in California will go through Jan. 31.
“This can confuse consumers a little bit but look to your local state. We’ll be reaching out a lot over the weeks and months to come,” Lee said. “But it is a huge credit to the Biden administration that instead of shortening the enrollment period, they lengthened it, putting more money on the table for navigators, putting more money on the table for outreach that shows a commitment to actually get coverage where it’s needed in low-income people’s hands, in the hands of communities of color.”
Lee said that like the Biden administration, Covered California will be running ads and doing outreach in Chinese, in Korean, in Vietnamese, “in the languages that represent the diversity of California in the nation. And that’s what it takes.”
He said that some of the TV ads from the Biden administration are going to run in California as well.
“They’re going to run the Central Valley, if people go to HealthCare.gov. They will get directly to Covered California, but in many states, healthcare.gov is the endpoint,” Lee said.
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 1 de noviembre de 2021, 6:26 p. m..
