Covered California just began its 10th open-enrollment period with the admirable and ambitious goal of continuing to reduce the number of uninsured Californians. And this is no easy task. If you've ever attempted to access a healthcare benefit exchange, you know it is a very complex system. These exchanges have so many participants like citizens, healthcare providers, insurers–all of whom need very different types of access to many types of services like dental and vision insurance, prices, access to accounts and more.

Covered California is the state's Affordable Care Act marketplace, which was created and managed by the California Healthcare Eligibility and Enrolment System (CalHEERS) Project. CalHEERS recently completed an update to the system with ForgeRock, implementing a comprehensive identity platform to better serve its various audiences. According to Toua Her, Information Technology Manager I, at CalHEERS, the organization can now "provide a stable, resilient platform for Californians to consume services from the exchange, enhance the security landscape with modern identity capabilities, protect users' data from unauthorized access, and provide a positive experience to consumers where we can leverage the power of identity."

Today, the plan is working. Covered California provides healthcare insurance to a record 1.7M Californians. According to Covered California and federal data, California's uninsured rate dropped to 7% in 2021 (which was 17.2% in 2013) and this marks the largest percentage drop for any state in the U.S. within the same timeframe.