It's hard work trying to get people to sign up for health insurance when their care is mostly free to them. Andrea Thomas is working to get Alaska Natives in Sitka, Alaska, to do just that. She's the outreach and enrollment manager at SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), and it's her job to sign people up for health insurance coverage through exchanges created as a result of the Affordable Care Act. To get a sense of just how uphill Thomas's battle is, consider this: Of the more than 100,000 people who live in Alaska and self-identify as Alaska Native or American Indian, only 115 had signed up for health insurance through an Affordable Care Act exchange as of March 31.
