The California Endowment Announces Partnership With AARP To Raise Awareness About Obamacare And Get Californians To Enroll In Health Coverage

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 17, 2013  /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The California Endowment announced today a partnership with AARP to create awareness about Obamacare and promote health care coverage enrollment in California. The partnership is part of The California Endowment's Get Covered campaign, known as Asegurate in Spanish, designed to help educate Californians about health care reform and its benefits while assisting families and individuals in understanding their enrollment options under the Affordable Care Act.

"We are excited to partner with a trusted organization like AARP, which has been a leader on major health care issues affecting families," said Daniel Zingale, Senior Vice President at The California Endowment. "AARP reaches an important demographic, and the partnership will help us extend our current outreach and education efforts to create greater access to affordable, quality health care for millions of Californians."

Both organizations will participate in joint activities to build on Get Covered's education and outreach efforts. These include:

• Live webinars where AARP trainers will discuss the basics about Medicare and its intersection with Obamacare
• AARP participation at Get Covered health care education events throughout the state
• Recording personal health care stories and successes

The partnership includes co-branding and cross promotion of education and event information via social media, website, email and other communication channels. 

"AARP is proud to partner with The California Endowment and the Get Covered campaign to connect Californians to affordable, quality health care," said Katie Hirning, State Director for AARP in California. "With 7 million uninsured in California, there is a great need for continued outreach and education to ensure that residents are enrolled into health care and get the vital services they need to stay healthy."

The Get Covered campaign was launched in June of this year as a bilingual effort to educate Latino and lower-income Californians about Obamacare and to drive them to enroll in Medi-Cal or private insurance through the state's online health insurance marketplace, coveredca.com. The campaign's target audience represents groups with the highest percentage of uninsured.

For more information on the Get Covered campaign, visit www.GetCoveredCa.com.

About The California Endowment

The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental affordable improvements in the health status of all Californians. Headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, The Endowment has regional offices in Sacramento, Oakland, Fresno and San Diego, with program staff working throughout the state. The Endowment challenges the conventional wisdom that medical settings and individual choices are solely responsible for people's health. Through its 'Health Happens Here' campaign and 10-year initiative for Building Healthy Communities, The Endowment is creating places where children are healthy, safe and ready to learn. At its core, The Endowment believes that health happens in neighborhoods, schools, and with prevention. For more information, visit The California Endowment's homepage at www.calendow.org.

About Get Covered

Get Covered is a multi-year bilingual outreach and enrollment campaign designed to educate Latino and lower-income Californians about Obamacare and to drive them to enroll in Medi-Cal or private insurance through Covered California, the state's health benefits marketplace. The campaign's target audience represents groups with the highest percentage of uninsured. The campaign includes a major Spanish-language media partnership among Univision, Telemundo, and La Opinion-impreMedia, who are among the nation's largest Spanish-language media outlets; The California Endowment, a private foundation advocating for health and health equity; and Covered California. Together, the three media partners reach nearly 100 percent of the state's Latino population—approximately 15 million Californians—using television and print reporting, public service announcements, documentaries, and digital media.

To learn more, visit www.getcoveredca.com. 

About AARP

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, with a membership of more than 37 million, that helps people turn their goals and dreams into real possibilities, strengthens communities and fights for the issues that matter most to families such as health care, employment security and retirement planning. For more information, visit AARP's homepage at http://www.aarp.org/

SOURCE The California Endowment