The Obamacare enrollment initiative Covered California is struggling to enroll Latinos, Ben Tracy of CBS News reports.
Half of the uninsured in California are Latinos, yet they account for just 21 percent of the signups thus far. Covered California employee Angelina Marquez said explaining the innate details of health insurance and the Obamacare enrollment process to prospective insurance shoppers have complicated her organization's efforts.
Director of Covered California Terry Lee also conceded the initial rendition of their Spanish website was not translated correctly. Conjointly, Covered California also failed to provide enough counselors to aid hispanics who experienced issues with the website.
Tracy asked Lee given the state has been planning "this for years, how hard is it to translate into spanish this website?"
"You need to get technical issues done right, it isn't that simple, but we have been ramping up the last year by making sure doing focus groups, reviewing our material and having Spanish speakers at the table, and we'll be doing that and we'll keep on doing that," Lee said.
Local woman Nora Castellano struggled with the enrollment process for months before resorting to enrolling in person, according to Tracy. Errors in the Covered California system would not give her credit for her federal subsidy.