Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — Lagging enrollment in PPACA among California's Latinos is spurring a new push into communities to sell the state's program face-to-face.

Many low-wage Latinos fear that going on public assistance could harm their efforts to become U.S. citizens, or enrolling could lead to the deportation of undocumented relatives who live with them, according to community activists. At the same time, glitches on the insurance exchange website and a lack of Spanish-speaking counselors on its telephone banks aren't helping, they say.

The result: Through Dec. 31, Hispanics made up just 20 percent of those who have enrolled in California and identified their ethnicity. That flies in the face of the fact that almost half of California's Latinos are eligible for subsidies under Obamacare. With a March 31 deadline looming for mandated insurance coverage, a new push has begun to sell the program in community centers, instead of through the state's exchange website or telephone lines.