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Challenge: Luring Healthy to Buy Coverage

Former Gov. Charlie Crist’s pet project, Cover Florida, seemed a creative way to cover the uninsured with low-cost health plans. But two years after its 2009 launch it collapsed, because the only people who signed up for it were those who had health problems.
 

Similar problems beset a Palm Beach County program for the uninsured, Vita Health, although it is still limping along, writes Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News.
 

The trouble, experts say, is partly that a lot of people don’t know about the program and that  young, healthy people are slow to sign up. The combination could spell trouble for the new plans that will become available for enrollment in October under the Affordable Care Act.

So the Obama administration knows it will have to get the word out through a mass-marketing campaign and find ways to lure the healthy into the  marketplace. As the Associated Press reports, work on a strategy has begun.

Carol Gentry, founder and special correspondent of Health News Florida, has four decades of experience covering health finance and policy, with an emphasis on consumer education and protection.