A day after all “open enrollments” finally ended in New York, participants in the “Get Covered New York” (GCNY) project gathered on the evening of April 16 to celebrate their successful outreach efforts to uninsured New Yorkers about new health care coverage options available in New York under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).   Over food and drink in a loft in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, they shared food, drink, and moving and humorous stories of their experiences over the past year.  Joining them were colleagues from similar efforts across New York City spearheaded by Enroll America and Organizing for Action.

GCNY was launched in the spring of 2013 as a joint initiative between New York City-based organizations active in the leadership of Health Care for All New York, and community-based activist groups affiliated with Greater NYC for Change.  The project’s goals have been to educate the public about new ACA-authorized plans available to New Yorkers, and outreach to the uninsured in community settings and directing them to various in-person assistors to help them get enrolled in coverage.

Initially, GCNY set up a simple website and developed basic educational and outreach materials.  They next trained over 120 volunteers on the basics of ACA coverage who then hit the streets over the course of the summer and fall of 2013, showing up across the city at street fairs, church socials, community festivals, soup kitchens, food pantries, health fairs, concerts in parks, and the like – over 80 events in total, many in neighborhoods with high rates of uninsured.  They collected contact information from uninsured people as they went, compiling them into a database of over 4,000 names.  Once open enrollment began on October 1^st, they began to contact these people back via weekly phone banks and email reminders, leading to over 1,500 phone conversations alone.  They not only urged people to get enrolled, they also collected personal stories from some, comparing the “anxious before” and “relieved after.”  Many who were called said they very much appreciated the tenacity of GCNY volunteers, and the help and encouragement they provided.

According to the New York State Dept. of Health, over 960,000 New Yorkers statewide have now enrolled in health plans, approximately 70% of them being previously uninsured.  GCNY participants took some well-deserved credit for a portion of those numbers.  They vowed to next shift their outreach efforts to target low-income people who can still sign-up for Medicaid, as well as small business owners and operators who can continue to enroll their employees into coverage.