Covered California makes sign-up push in San Bernardino County

Feb. 21--SAN BERNARDINO -- Jorge Reyes, 23, has great hopes for President Barack Obama's health care reform package.

About two years ago, Reyes broke his left ankle and hasn't been able to play basketball or any other competitive sport since.

"About all I can do is stand there and do free throws," he said.

A San Bernardino Valley College student, Reyes hopes that can change soon. On Thursday, he enrolled in a program via a Covered California push to boost enrollment.

Covered California is the statewide insurance exchange created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, frequently referred to as Obamacare.

Today, the registration drive continues from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. outside the college's Business Building Conference Center. The event is open to all.

Covered California Executive Director Peter V. Lee will join Assemblywoman Cheryl R. Brown, D-San Bernardino, whose office organized the two-day event, for a 10 a.m. news conference.

San Bernardino County lags in the state in terms of sign-ups, registering 45 percent of an enrollment goal, while the state has reached 86 percent.

In fact, San Bernardino County ranked the lowest, in terms of percentage sign-ups, among the counties for which statistics were released late last year.

A key to the push to improve San Bernardino County sign-ups is to reach Spanish-speaking and young (under age 30) residents, said Edith Lara-Tad, a regional Covered California spokeswoman.

Covered California recently reported the enrollment rate for Latinos reached 28 percent for the month of January, up from about 18 percent monthly in the October through December period.

Covered California brought to San Bernardino Valley College a team of 35 outreach, planning and registration specialists while the county of San Bernardino provided nine Covered California specialists, Lara-Tad said.

For much of the day, the sign-up team outnumbered the students seeking information or wanting to sign up.

"We will have more tomorrow," Lara-Tad said Thursday.

Not everyone was there Thursday to check out the program.

Nathaly Flores, 21, who is planning to attending UC Irvine next school year, came to check on the status of her application, which she submitted in mid-January.

"They told me I would get (acceptance) notification in the mail by Feb. 14," she said.

There's a special urgency in Flores' case. She's had several recent fainting bouts and has intermittent chest pains.

Emergency medical personnel have told her that her electrocardiogram results were "'most unusual for someone 21 years old.'"

But she has no health insurance and is unable to financially pursue what may be a significant heart health issue with a cardiologist.

After two lengthy sessions with trained enrollment specialists, Flores emerged from the Business Building Conference Center, which has been converted into a Covered California command center, with these words: "I'm in a waiting game."

Flores was told that it could be 45 more days until her application is approved.

Not everyone cruising the Covered California event had an interest in signing up.

Sergio Jacinto, 21, a biochemistry major at the college, has no health insurance and doesn't plan to get any.

Jacinto said he will pay the penalty for not getting insurance.

"I don't get sick. And I'm very safe," Jacinto said, meaning that he thought the risk of his needing health insurance is almost nothing.

Obamacare "will last awhile, but it will be repealed. A lot of people are upset with it," he said.

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