With ACA Enrollment Approaching, A Cabinet Member Visits Philly To Talk Up The New Process
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The second round of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act opens in two weeks and the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary was in Philadelphia today to promote the simplified sign-up.
Annie Ha was one of the "young invincibles" that federal health officials wooed so doggedly last year.
She says, " I go to the gym everyday, I eat healthy, so I figured I'm fine. I'd rather pay the penalty than to be insured."
But Ha's mother insisted, "What if..." So she signed up. And six months later, Annie was diagnosed with cancer.
"Hearing that word, your whole world just falls apart."
Ha joined HHS secretary Sylvia Burwell at the Free Library to urge anyone without insurance to enroll this time around. Burwell says the process will be easier and faster.
"We went from 76 pages down to 16."
Subsidies and tax credits will still keep the cost down and Pennsylvania's agreement, finally, to expand Medicaid means an additional 150,000 people living in poverty are eligible.
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