Obama's plea to Californians, Latinos, youth: sign up for health coverage

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- U.S. President Barack Obama is making a personal plea to Californians, Latinos and young people to sign up for coverage under the new health care law.

Obama on Friday will use his visit to California to highlight how the state is implementing the Affordable Care Act. He also will discuss California's collaboration with non-government groups to promote, primarily to Hispanics, the health care exchanges that are being created to help millions of now-uninsured consumers afford coverage, White House officials said.

California has the country's biggest insurance market and, with 6 million uninsured residents, it is a crucial part of the effort to get consumers to sign up for coverage, officials said.

Thirteen insurance companies will be offering multiple health plans that vary in coverage and price through California's exchange, even in some of the most rural regions of the state.

Getting young people to enrol through the exchanges also is critical; they cost insurers less money because they tend to have the best health and don't require a lot of costly medical care.

The Obama administration is looking for about 7 million people to enrol through the exchanges, and 2.6 million of them need to be younger in order to keep costs down for the overall pool of enrollees, officials said. Nearly one-third of these young people live in three states: California, Texas and Florida.

Among the private entities working with the state of California to promote enrolment are the Spanish-language TV networks Telemundo and Univision. The White House says the law will give more than 10 million uninsured Latinos across the country the opportunity to afford health insurance coverage.

Not all states are pushing the law. In many states, Republican governments are opposing the law's implementation and are leaving oversight of the exchanges to the federal government.

Obama arrived in California on Thursday evening to attend fundraisers in Palo Alto and Portola Valley to help Senate Democratic candidates.

He was headlining a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Friday in Santa Monica before travelling to the sprawling Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage for two days of private talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.