Medical professionals say there’s a lot of confusion across America about the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Kentucky health care leaders are contacting residents individually and at public events to give them information and encourage them to enroll by the Dec. 15 deadline.
Residents of the Bluegrass State can go online to the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange to find someone in their area to help with the application and enrollment for health insurance plans. Each county has "assisters" who can provide information and help with enrollment. These "assisters" were previously called "kynectors," when the state's kynect health care marketplace was in operation, or "navigators."
Doug Hogan is a spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. He says the state is in high gear about reminding people about the enrollment deadline.
“We are reaching out in a variety of ways to those who currently have a qualified health plan on the exchange. They are getting text messages, emails, phone calls and postcards. We’re trying to make sure those folks are aware of open enrollment.”
Hogan says the agency is also taking the information “on the road.”
“We have also identified about 400 or so community events throughout the state, things like fall festivals, where we can set up recruitment tables and just provide information about qualified health plans, about the exchange.”
In addition to the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange website, residents can use the federal site healthcare-dot-gov
Nationally, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports about 1.5 million people have signed up for a health plan on healthcare-dot-gov since open enrollment began on Nov. 1.