— U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in Kansas City on Monday urging the uninsured to enroll for coverage on the federal health exchange.
She acknowledged the troubled start of the federal marketplace website, healthcare.gov, but said significant improvements have been made. She described a “surge” of enrollment since the end of November, after the website was fixed.
“People, if they had an early experience, should come back to the site because we’re enrolling thousands of people every day,” Sebelius said.
The former Kansas governor held a press conference at the Full Employment Council near 18th and Vine.
She touted the benefits of the health exchange for both the uninsured and for the metro area.
About 250,000 people in the Kansas City metro area lack health insurance and are eligible to enroll for coverage through the new insurance marketplace, she said. And about 80 percent of them would qualify for subsidies to help pay for insurance.
She said people could enroll using a 24/7 phone hotline; by mail; or in-person with a local navigator, certified application counselor, agent or broker.
The latest numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicare show that 7,475 people in Kansas and 33,138 people in Missouri had enrolled in insurance plans on the exchange as of Dec. 28, 2013.
Sebelius introduced to the crowd local business owner Lynn Gardner Hinkle, who had recently enrolled for insurance. Hinkle said she had twice undergone surgery to treat melanoma and had been ineligible for private insurance before the Affordable Care Act barred insurance companies from excluding from coverage those with pre-existing medical conditions.
“I am basically so happy to shout from the rooftops, ‘If you are not insured, get on the website!’” Hinkle said.
Sebelius was introduced by Kansas City, Mo. Mayor Sly James, who voiced his support for the Affordable Care Act. He described the law as “not perfect” but brushed aside problems with the website.
“If salvation arrives in a broken-down jalopy, it’s still salvation,” he said.
Also at the event, Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City Chief Executive Bridget McCandless announced Cover KC, a new city-wide program to help the uninsured enroll.
Cover KC will include door-to-door canvassing, a website, phone hotline, as well as mail and social media components. McCandless said Cover KC would try to reach every household with an uninsured person. She anticipated the effort would involve 200,000 mailings, 70,000 home visits, and 270,000 phone calls.
Cover KC is a collaboration of public and private groups as well as the offices of Mayor James and Kansas City, Kan. Mayor Mark Holland.
“This is about changing the conversation for people to really examine what their personal health responsibilities and opportunities are,” McCandless said.
Sebelius said Kansas and Missouri should expand their Medicaid programs, as prescribed by the Affordable Care Act. She emphasized the federal funding that would come to the states, if they did.
“Five million dollars in federal assistance is lost every single day – that started Jan. 1 – every single day Missouri is losing $5 million which could pay 100 percent of the cost of those who are uninsured and eligible for Medicaid expansion,” Sebelius said.
She said Kansas was missing out on $1.5 million a day.
Under the Affordable Care ACT, The federal government obliged to pay 100 percent of the costs of Medicaid expansion for states until 2017. After that, the federal funding tapers down gradually to 90 percent of expansion costs.