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Today I joined Governor Kitzhaber and Liz Baxter, chair of the Cover Oregon board at a news conference that made one thing clear: We are committed to getting people enrolled in the new health care coverage that starts on January 1, 2014.
Cover Oregon is about more than a website and we have to make sure people understand that there are other options for enrollment.
Those two options are fast-track enrollments and manual applications.
About 70,000 Oregonians already have taken advantage of the fast-track option and will be enrolled in health care coverage in the new year. In the weeks to come we will be increasing our outreach efforts to bring in even more fast-trackers.
The other enrollment option is the online application form that’s on Cover Oregon’s website. The sooner people get their applications in, the sooner they can be processed manually to get enrolled in coverage by January 1. OHA staff will be working with Cover Oregon to get help to make sure that happens. We will be calling on all parts of the agency to pitch in one way or another. And we will be doing this work while the technical teams at Cover Oregon continue to work around the clock to fix the online enrollment system.
This is how we do things in Oregon – when there are problems we come together to fix them. Make no mistake, it’s going to take a lot of work. But we are up to the challenge. Getting people enrolled in health care coverage is going to be Job No. 1 for the foreseeable future for us so that we can help create a better and healthier future for our state.
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