Navigators brace for final health care enrollments | The Augusta Chronicle

Angela Taylor sat across a table from Anne Fulcher and breathed a sigh of relief as Fulcher began the application that will lead to her getting health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Taylor, who will soon be a management trainee at a Mc­Donald’s in Augusta, had been worried about getting enrolled before the March 31 deadline “because I have been working all the time,” she said. “I’m better now.”

As he and others in the area prepare for the onslaught of people trying to enroll before open enrollment closes, Craige Taylor-Burton knows what he will need.

“Lots of coffee,” said the enrollment specialist at Christ Community Health Services.

Officials have said all along that they expected a large number of people would wait until the last minute to try to get coverage through the new marketplaces, based on previous insurance enrollments.

In the 2012 open enrollment season for the Federal Em­ploy­ees Health Benefits Pro­gram, 22 percent made changes in the last two days, officials said earlier this month.

Enrollment through the new marketplaces reached 5 million last week, officials said, up from 4.2 million at the end of February and nearly equaling the number enrolled the previous month. Calls to the customer service center saw their highest volume since late December, when people rushed to get coverage that would begin Jan. 1.

“When there was that deadline to have your insurance start by the first (of the year), it was ridiculous with people trying to come in and get signed up,” said Candace Lee, an enrollment specialist at Christ Community. “There was that rush. I can assume there is going to be that rush again the week of and the last day. I will say that we’re going to get a lot of phone calls.”

via Navigators brace for final health care enrollments | The Augusta Chronicle.