Engaging the Invincible: Activities to Connect Millennials to Coverage

Editor's Notes

• #6: Health Care Affordable Care Act education & outreach Health insurance literacy #Health4All Medicaid Expansion Higher Education Loan repayment education College affordability advocacy Jobs & Financial Security Apprenticeships Retirement Savings Millennial Consulting Bringing the young adult voice to new sectors
• #7: These next 3 slides are a quick look at the remaining uninsured in the United States, according to the Consumer Population Survey data. CPS data is collected yearly to reflect the previous year, so the newest data released in the fall of 2015 captures changes in the uninsured rate from 2013 to 2014. During that time, we saw tremendous gains in health insurance rates – and nearly half of the newly uninsured, 43%, were young adults 18-34. However, looking at who still doesn’t have health coverage – you can see the biggest uninsured group is still the 18-34 year olds, representing the large red chunk at 38%. http://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html
• #8: Now, breaking down uninsured Millennials further, we see that Millennials of color are still far more likely to be uninsured than their white counterparts. White Millennials are uninsured at about 12.5%, just slightly higher than the overall percentage of uninsured Americans, around 10%. But, when we look at Black Millennials, we see they are uninsured at almost twice that, at 20.81%, and American Indian/Alaskan Natives are uninsured at nearly 28%. Because of the way CPS collects data, these numbers reflect people of non-Hispanic origin, so white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, etc. On the next slide we’ll take a look at Hispanic Millennials http://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html
• #9: Similarly, we see Millennials of Hispanic origin, regardless of race, are much more likely to be uninsured than non-Hispanic Millennials, with 28.5% of Hispanic Millennials being uninsured going into year three of ACA open enrollment. http://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html
• #10: Because it’s very difficult to find young adults on the ground who may qualify for a special enrollment period, digital strategies can be a great tool for SEP outreach.
• #11: So we knew going into the third open enrollment period that our main audience was young adults of color, but we also knew there would be additional challenges in reaching the remaining uninsured – many populations have additional barriers to enrollment, coming from a mixed immigration status family for example. The timing of open enrollment was also difficult especially for the young adult population, for those in school, it starts basically right before the Thanksgiving break, runs through finals, and ends when many students may be traveling over the winter holidays. Many of the remaining insured are part time workers, some of which pick up seasonal work during the holidays putting extra strain on their time. All in all, we did have some advantages. Strong partnerships built up over the past few years has helped to institutionalize this work in local communities, something that will hopefully continue to grow over the next few years. Our biggest advantage this year, was the nearly 10 million people who have gained insurance over the past two enrollment seasons who can now serve as advocates and validators for the law to their friends, family, and coworkers.
• #13: Having trouble…Not sure where to look or having trouble with getting your foot in the door? Use resources like your local chamber of commerce, local consulates, large community events and fairs to locate them
• #14: In year three, we found that the messaging largely remained the same. Millennials want comprehensive coverage, but most of all, it needs to be affordable. We messaged health coverage in three phases: 1) benefits such as preventive care, and protections against medical debt 2) affordability through tax credits and finally, 3) avoiding the penalty
• #15: As you might have already deduced, young adults are far more likely than older Americans to qualify for a special enrollment period. Young adults are more likely than older adults to get married, have a baby, change jobs (causing a loss in coverage) move, and of course – turn 26.
• #16: Although, open enrollment is now over – there’s still plenty of opportunities to engage young adults in enrollment. Here are a few of the most common “qualifying life events” that can trigger a special enrollment period, (read them out). Basically, these can be broken down into two categories: losing existing coverage, or an increase in household size. Another trigger common for young adults in FFM states is an increase in income, which bumps the individual out of the Medicaid gap and into marketplace eligibility. Young adults who are not working or working part time while in school who see an increase in income can take advantage of this outside of open enrollment to gain coverage. Year-round Eligibility Medicaid American Indian/Alaska Native Special Enrollment Periods Qualifying life events Other limited circumstances Next open enrollment: Nov. 1, 2016 – Jan. 31, 2017
• #19: Because it’s very difficult to find young adults on the ground who may qualify for a special enrollment period, digital strategies can be a great tool for SEP outreach.
• #20: Social Media is a great platform to reach young adults and engage them in health care. Frequent use of social media can help build a following for your organization, and the more often you’re posting, the more likely a wider audience will see your posts. However, if you want to reach a very specific demographic, paid digital ads can do the trick. Social platforms such as Facebook allow you to target a paid ad toward a very specific audience. For example, we used the above picture as a promoted post, and limited our outreach on Facebook to users in Houston, Texas (where we have an office) to those who were turning 26 within a seven month period from May to November in 2014. Since you pay per click for the ad, it’s incredibly effective that our post was only being seen by someone who would actually be turning 26, and potentially losing their coverage. As you can see, there’s no text on the actual picture – the more the post looks like something a friend might post, the more likely you are to draw someone’s attention. Authenticity is important, as is relevance.
• #21: This is another example of a graphic we created to promote the January 31st deadline for as the last day of Open Enrollment. As you can see, it’s timely, humorous, and very relevant to a young adult population.   To date this post has received 109 RTs and 122 likes on Twitter capturing 9.6M potential impressions. We also ran it as a boosted post on Facebook and it reached 21,666 people with 133 likes and 33 shares. 
• #22: If you want to participate in a millennial Monday chat you can contact member of the YI Communication team and we will inform you of upcoming chat topics. We generally send the script along with promotional graphics, the Thursday before each chat. You can find their email addresses on our website at Young Invincibles.org Partnering with other non profits and large government entities such as HHS and CMS The second one is an example of how you can partner with partners in other states, useful for national organizations. Targeting specific communities Piggy backing on the National Health Observance Calendar.
• #24: This is a further breakdown of the demographics of who was involved in this conversation. We had participants from all over the United States and even Australia involved in this chat. What you do not see is that this report only reflects our #MillennialMon. This particular chat also used another hashtag, #NMHM16. This hashtag was reported as being used in Europe during the conversation, so this particular conversation made happened across 3 continents.
• #25: Learn more about what is included in your insurance, determine the best ways to use it, and connect with doctors in your insurance network