Covered California and the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) announced that from Oct. 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 49,665 consumers in mostly rural Northern California counties enrolled in subsidized and non-subsidized Covered California health insurance plans.

The new total represents a nearly 50 percent increase from the 33,111 enrollments recorded through Feb. 28.

The open-enrollment period for health insurance plans in Covered California’s marketplace ended March 31.

Although open enrollment has ended, consumers who experience a qualifying life event can still enroll in a health insurance plan through Covered California.

Qualifying life events include losing health coverage through a job, getting married or entering into a domestic partnership, having or adopting a child, changing where a person permanently lives or gaining citizenship. For a list of common types of qualifying events, visit www.CoveredCA.com .

The next open-enrollment period will be in the fall of 2014. Also, Californians can enroll in Medi-Cal year-round.

The Northern California counties of Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne and Yuba represent about 4 percent of the statewide enrollment.

The local total includes 45,042 consumers eligible for financial subsidies. These counties encompass Covered California pricing region 1.

For the six-month period that ended March 31, 1,395,929 consumers enrolled in plans statewide.

The statewide total increased 58.6 percent from the 880,082 consumers who enrolled by the end of Feb. 28. Covered California reached 1 million consumers enrolled on March 14.