Racing to spread word about new health plans

EAST LANSING, Mich. — President Obama and the Democrats passed the 2010 health care law to make medical insurance available to more than 30 million people who do not have it. But with recent studies showing that as many as three-fourths of those people are unaware of their new options, health care providers are joining community organizers and insurance companies in an ambitious effort to spread the word in the six months remaining before the health plans become available. Here in Michigan, a small army of doctors and nurses, hospital employees, insurance agents and advocates for low-income people is mobilizing for the next phase of this revolution in domestic social policy: finding people who are eligible for health insurance and getting them enrolled.