Nov. 17--Since the waning days of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, California has pushed to become the earliest adopter of President Barack Obama's health care plan.

But it wasn't until Obama's re-election this month that state officials were fully confident their plans would take flight.

They first had to survive a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June and wait to find out whether a new Republican administration in Washington would reverse the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"The answer is clear," said Peter V. Lee, head of the state's new marketplace for subsidized health insurance. "A year from now, California will be expanding its coverage to millions of Californians."

California submitted its formal application to the federal government this week to run its own health care marketplace, newly dubbed Covered California. Such entities -- called exchanges -- are the linchpin of Obama's plan because they will deliver subsidized health care to the uninsured and influence the rest of the market starting in 2014.

California is seeking more than $700 million over two years from the federal government to run the state program.

Covered California will serve households earning up to four times the federal poverty level, equal to $92,200 for a family of four in 2012. The federal government will also expand Medicaid -- Medi-Cal in California -- to residents below 138 percent of the federal poverty guideline, including childless adults who did not have access before.

While Obama's win may have cleared the last political hurdle, it didn't make the state's logistical task easier.

"Clearly the things that could have interfered with the implementation have been resolved," said California Health and Human Services Secretary Diana S. Dooley, who chairs the board overseeing Covered California. "That's not to say, however, that it's smooth sailing. This is still a very, very heavy lift. The timeline is extraordinarily ambitious."

California has taken a hands-on approach to how it manages its health care exchange, said Micah Weinberg, a health care expert and senior policy adviser with the business group Bay Area Council.

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California Moves Ahead with Health Care Exchange