If you tried to start a Covered California health insurance application and gave up because the website (which, let's face it, blew), you still have a few more hours to sign up for coverage for 2014.
Covered California, California's health insurance marketplace under the federal Affordable Care Act, "allows consumers to shop for plans from a number of providers and access subsidies they may be eligible for," according to their website.
The original deadline for health coverage applications was March 31, but Covered California allowed a grace period through today after its website crapped out towards the end of March.
“We recognize that people may not have been able to get through, either by phone or on their computer, to enroll by the March 31 deadline, so we are allowing them to get the help of an assister to cross the finish line,” Covered California executive director Peter Lee said in an email statement.
California residents who set up online accounts and managed to complete the first page of the application by 11:59 PM on March 31 can, Lee says, log in to their account and complete their application before midnight tonight in order to be eligible for coverage starting May 1.
If you couldn't even start an application because of the website's jankiness, you are encouraged to contact authorized certified enrollment counselors, certified insurance agents and county human service agencies to tell them why you missed the deadline, and to get their help to complete an application and choose a plan by tonight, Lee says.
We suspect that even if you didn't bother to try to set up an account, and are just a terrible, terrible procrastinator, you could cry "bad website" and make it in under the wire, too. But we're just speculating! In any case, good luck.