At the September Covered California Board meeting the members voted to adopt voter registration regulations that will mandate that Certified Enrollment Counselors (CEC) and Certified Insurance Agents (CIA) offer voter registration assistance to individuals that are applying for health insurance through the state exchange. In essence, CECs and CIA will now be doing volunteer work on behalf of the Secretary of State whose job it is to register Californians to vote.
The actual language of the adopted regulation states-
(b) When an Assister or CIA facilitates a covered transaction in person, as soon as CalHEERS has been programmed to display the voter preference form and allows an Applicant to answer questions related to voter registration, the Assister or CIA shall provide the Applicant the following voter registration services:
(1) For Applicants submitting an electronic covered transaction through CalHEERS, the Assister shall do the following when the voter preference form is displayed in CalHEERS:
(A) Ask the Applicant, “If you are not registered to vote where you live now, would you like to apply to register to vote here today?”
(B) Read aloud or allow the Applicant to read the “Important Notices” section of the vote preference form.
(i) If the Applicant selects the “Yes” option indicating that the Applicant would like to register to vote, the Assister or CIA shall mark the response on the online voter preference form, and shall provide assistance filling out the online voter registration form on the Secretary of State’s website, unless such assistance is declined by the Applicant.
Download the full text version at the end of the post.
Agents mandated to register voters
Not only are CECs and CIAs expected to know everything about health insurance, health plans, immigration, modified adjusted gross income, and the various tax forms, we now have to spend more time learning the Secretary of State website to register people to vote. I am not paid to register people to vote. If I wanted that job you could find me in front of a grocery store begging you to register and getting paid to do it. CECs and CIAs are paid to assist people with enrollment in health insurance, not register them to vote.
It’s not my job, man
Public comments at the board meeting indicated voter registration outreach is a federal requirement within the Affordable Care Act. Well, that is a noble cause and I will gladly hand out voter registration cards but I don’t think I should be mandated to assist with someone’s registration online. Many people made public comments in support of the voter registration regulations and I suspect none of them actually enroll people into health plans. Most of the people that support these extra requirements are well intended staffers and invited “stakeholders” who like suggesting work for other people.
Here’s a voter registration card
Currently on either the paper application or the online enrollment for Covered California there are check boxes indicating if the household would like more information about different social services they may be eligible for such as CalFresh and CalWorks. Why can’t the voter registration be in the same format? Will Covered California ask CECs and CIAs to screen people for other social service programs and then assist them in the enrollment of those programs? Heck, agents and many CECs haven’t even been paid for the Medi-Cal enrollments we assisted with nine months.
Voter registration is a political game
From the California Secretary of State voter registration webpage. Which political party would you encourage your client to register with?
Frankly, I think we are putting CIAs, CECs, the enrollment entities and the Navigators in a position of being accused of playing politics. Many of the organization that will be receiving millions of dollars in Navigator grants are active in politics such as Planned Parenthood, NAACP, and Catholic Charities. There will be unintended and subtle pressure perceived by some individuals to register for a political party preferred by the person that just enrolled him or her in a health plan.
Voter ID laws are the fraud
For the record, I think the voter ID movement to reduce voter fraud is a red herring instigated and encouraged by conservative groups in order to suppress minority voting. However, in my most cynical moments I can imagine that the voter registration assistance regulation is a thinly veiled attempt to boost Democratic voter rolls. If the person assisting with the voter registration is aligned with Democratic Party initiatives there will be unspoken pressure for the person being assisted to register as a Democrat.
Of course, the regulations admonish against such influence.
(d) Assisters and CIAs providing voter registration services pursuant to this Section shall not:
(1) Interfere with an Applicant’s right to register or decline to register to vote;
(2) Make any statement to an Applicant that a decision to register or not register to vote will affect the availability of services or benefits that the Applicant may receive from the Exchange or Medi-Cal.
(3) Seek to influence an Applicant’s political preference or party designation; or
(4) Refuse to accept and transmit an Applicant’s voter registration application that was properly completed pursuant to this Section.
Say goodbye to the ACA
So I won’t be accused of influencing any one’s political preference, let me state my political position up front before we even begin the application. If you register Republican and you vote Republican and the Republicans take control of the Senate and Presidency, they have vowed to repeal the ACA. That means the tax credits to lower health insurance will go away. That means that expanded Medi-Cal will probably disappear. This means we will probably go back to a time when people can be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Is my position to prospective applicants clear enough?
Let’s make Covered California work
Have I told the applicant which party they should select when they register to vote? No. Just like the Covered California Board members, for a variety of reasons, will avoid taking sides on the health insurance rate regulation Proposition 45, CECs and CIAs should not be put in political position of assisting people to register to vote right after they have signed up for either Medi-Cal or a tax subsidized plan. The voter registration regulations adopted are bad for Covered California, CECs and CIAs working to enroll people in health insurance. We need to keep politics out of health insurance and just stay focused on making Covered California work.
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