As enrollment begins for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), D.C. Health Link, also known as the D.C. Health Benefits Exchange Authority, is at the forefront of an effort to enroll more residents. On Nov. 1, the agency deployed a Care-A-Van to visit several areas in the city.
The Care-A-Van, equipped with nine vehicles – including health screening and faith-based vans and two DC Health Link cars – began the day at the D.C. Department of Employment Services in Northeast D.C. From there, the vehicles headed to five other locations across the city, including the Anacostia Metro Station, Congress Heights Metro Station, Brentwood Shopping Center, and Eastern Market, after commemorating the opening with a ceremonial bell ringing.
DC Health Link deployed a Care-A-Van Nov. 1 to inform residents on the values of getting health insurance through the health exchange. (Photo by LaTrina Antoine)
“The goal of today’s outreach/Care-A-Van is to announce the opening of the 2017 enrollment period and to make residents’ awareness of the values and benefits of having quality health insurance through DC Health Link,” Linda Wharton Boyd, the exchange’s director of external affairs and stakeholder engagement, told the AFRO.
“Our theme for this year is getting to zero,” she said. “We hope to insure every resident in the District of Columbia who is uninsured. We plan to insure them.”
Boyd said part of the exchange’s plan to sign up residents includes using community-based organizations or assisters to get into communities and enroll the uninsured.
Community organizations that provided residents with enrollment assistance on Nov. 1 include Whitman-Walker Health, Mary’s Center, La Clinica del Pueblo, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, Unity Health Care, and Community of Hope.
Insurance rates for D.C. residents will increase in 2017.
According to the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking, the average increase in 2017 premiums across all insurers is 7.27 percent for individuals and .36 percent for small group plans.
Boyd said that the best way for residents to ensure a low health insurance rate is to “shop, compare and save.”
A September press release by the exchange showed that the District’s uninsured rate dropped by half with more than 25,500 people gaining health insurance in 2016.
“Clearly, the Affordable Care Act is working in the District of Columbia,” said Leighton Ku, chair of the Research Committee of the executive board of the exchange and professor of health policy at The George Washington University, in a statement. “We are working together to be a national model for increasing insurance coverage and improving access to health care for District residents and small businesses.”
The enrollment period for ACA will last until Jan. 31, 2017.
