Where WA health departments are targeting the uninsured for Obamacare

Health departments across the state aren’t waiting for people to sign up for the new insurance exchanges. They are actively targeting the uninsured to get them signed up, and even targeting specific cities.

Kent has one of the highest uninsured populations in King County, about 24 percent of the people in the city don’t have insurance. The health department is actively targeting the city, pumping resources into the community to spread the word about the new health care exchanges and opportunities.

But it’s not just Kent. Jennifer DeYoung in King County Public Health said they’re using census data to target every pocket where there’s a high percentage of uninsured.

“There are uninsured folks all throughout the county, but there’s definitely the highest concentration in south King County,” DeYoung said.

In places like Des Moines, DeYoung said people are seven or eight times less likely to be insured than a city like Mercer Island or Sammamish.

The federal government gave King County more than a million dollars for this outreach program to help the 180,000 county residents without insurance. People are hanging posters, going door to door with hangers and fliers, and they are meeting people one on one at churches and clinics.

“To help spread the word in the areas where there are high levels of uninsured,” DeYoung said. “To make sure they understand what the new coverage opportunities are and how they can go about getting enrolled.”

In Pierce County, the same active targeting is underway in places like Lakewood, South Tacoma, Milton, and Eatonville. Kayla Scrivner in the county health department said it is also focusing on traditionally uninsured groups.

“We want to make sure that we’re working with partners that serve folks with limited English proficiency, people that are homeless,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re reaching out to rural areas of Pierce County.”

There are 109,000 uninsured people in Pierce County. Scrivner says about 90 percent of them would qualify for some sort of financial assistance in the program too.

Snohomish County public health is targeting cities like Arlington, Standwood, and Marysville. The county has more than 75,000 uninsured people who qualify for the health exchanges. The county’s Wendy Nelson said Snohomish is also in charge of outreach in Whatcom, San Juan, Island, and Skagit counties.

“We trained over 200 in-person assisters to go out and help the community free of charge to sign up for insurance,” Nelson said.

Through the first week of Obamacare sign ups, including all the problems with the websites, the county health departments said they’re doing a brisk business.

They haven’t released the numbers of people that have actually signed up, but they said there is a lot of interest and they’re meeting with a lot of people.