ACA gains steam in North State

More than three times as many North State residents signed up for health insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December as had done so in the first two months of the program.

According to a Jan. 31 press release from Covered California, the agency that is implementing the ACA in the state, as of Dec. 31 of last year, 19,732 customers in the mostly rural Region 1—which comprises 18 counties, including Butte—had signed up. Of them, 17,723 qualified for subsidies.

In the first two months of the program, from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30, just 4,393 people signed up.

While no figures are available on the number of people in Region 1 who qualified for expanded Medi-Cal during December, 1.2 million residents qualified for Medi-Cal statewide, while 500,000 purchased insurance plans.