Many people in California are wondering what will happen to their health care coverage if President-elect Donald Trump goes through with plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
Dr. Patrick Romano, professor at the UC Davis Center for Health Care Policy and Research, says a full repeal is unlikely though changes could be made quickly under executive order.
"The hard part is what do you do about the Medicaid expansion. What do you do about the exchanges. Because that's where we have 22 million people now who are insured, who were previously uninsured and didn't have access to health care," he says.
Of those 22 million, about 5 million are in California.
Romano says people should continue signing up for Covered California and Medi-Cal during open enrollment. He says the more people enrolled, the harder it will be to get rid of it.
"Don't panic right now. Let's just go about our business. Nothing will change in 2017. For 2018, who knows. All bets are off. We'll have to wait and see," Romano says.
People who want coverage to start the first of the year should sign up by December 15. The last day to enroll for 2017 is January 31.
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