Md. Churches Band Together To Get People Enrolled For Insurance

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Its long term future may be in question, but for 2017 the Affordable Care Act is still available.

As Alex DeMetrick reports, that's led to a last-minute push to enroll more Marylanders.

A dozen churches across Maryland have agreed, "to get the word out about the last two weeks of open enrollment, and we're going to have navigators," says John Kromm, of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange.

To navigate enrolling in the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, the churches will provide one stop help to sign up church members for a health insurance plan.

"I think the partnering makes it a stronger possibility for them to get everything they need," says Dr. Rev. Cleveland Mason.

Nationally, enrollment in the ACA is up this year.

And it's going well here in Maryland too, Kromm says. "So far we have about 150,000 people enrolled and that's growing."

Before the ACA, 745,000 Marylanders were without health insurance. Last year, 400,000 of those were insured. Health care experts say that's taken pressure off of emergency rooms, which were often the only resort for people who fell ill without health insurance.

"Nobody plans to get sick, and that's why health insurance is so important," Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen says.

"It allows us to get preventative service, it stops small problems from becoming big problems. It allos us to save money in the long run because health care can be so expensive."

Locations of the churches participating in the enrollment can be found at www.MarylandHealthConnection.gov/FaithWeekend.

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