Young, healthy people are the targets, crucial to the success of the nations new federal health care law. They rarely see a doctor and would pay premiums for years to come. Their money would help cover the care of older and sicker customers.

And one of the largest experiments to educate and ultimately enroll them is underway in California.

California State University, with more than 437,000 students across 23 campuses, is applying a $1.25 million federal grant to reach students, their families, part-time staff and even those who apply to universities but dont enroll. Plying them with pizza and luring them with hip-hop, campus leaders and student ambassadors are dangling subsidies for signing up and warning that even a simple sports injury could spell financial ruin.

They are talking to people like Martina Rose Rocks, who was scurrying across campus on a recent afternoon when she came upon multicolored tents outfitted with flat-screen televisions. A DJ spun records, fitted in an oversized sweatshirt bearing a portrait of President Barack Obama.

Rocks, a full-time student at Chico State University, is without health coverage, so the pitch she would get from a volunteer with the state insurance marketplace caught her attention. Especially attractive was paying as little as $5 a month after receiving a federal subsidy based on her age, income and residence, she said.

Rocks, 32, said she plans to sign up for a plan after doing more research. She hopes to have coverage as soon as the first of the year.

Its really scary not to have health insurance, she said.

While they may not use much health care, costs for students tend to be extremely low because they qualify for sizable subsidies, said Peter V. Lee, executive director of Covered California, the states health care exchange.So they have huge rationale, he said.

The man selected to lead the systems outreach campaign is Dr. Walter Zelman, chair of the Department of Health Science at California State University, Los Angeles. Zelman has spent decades working on health policy, including with Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in the early 1990s when he helped develop a universal coverage plan that became a model for plans proposed by the Clinton administration.

Two years ago, he was working at CSU with interns whose project involved contacting the state exchange and urging officials to give special attention to students because of the high numbers of uninsured.

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California universities pitch health care reform with deejays, pizza and peace of mind