Like the rest of the state the Affordable Care Act, Obama care, is finding tough going in rural Nevada.
According to Theresa Dini who was hired to walk prospective clients through the newly federally mandated law in rural Nevada she has signed up about 20 people for the program. However the vast majority were enrolled in Medicaid and not private health insurers in the new state run health exchange.
Dini who will be in Wendover until Friday has perhaps one of the largest territories of any Obama care Navigator in the country running from the Washoe County line to Utah and south to the Clark County line.
But the news like the rest of the country is not in the miles she will drive but rather the dearth of interest in the program.
According to some news reports fewer than 600 Nevada’s have been enrolled in Nevada since its trouble laden launch in October, according to Nevada Health Link Wednesday.
That’s about one paid enrollment per 600 unique visitors to the website.
State officials feel good about these results, at least in comparison to the federal program.
“The big difference really is that it works,” C. J. Bawden of Nevada Health Link told a local news outlet yesterday. “Really, we could easily have been part of a federal system that just doesn’t.”
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, echoed those sentiments:
“I felt it was prudent and in Nevada’s best interest to have a state-run exchange,” he said. “And I think that, at least over the course of a month and a half, I think that has proven out to be the more prudent choice.”
Meanwhile, more than 24,600 Nevadans have received cancellation notices so far.
