It's almost become a clich: If the new health care law makes it here, it can make it anywhere.

As thousands of California procrastinators try to beat Monday's midnight deadline to apply for a health care plan, they'll be joining more than 1 million others in the Bellwether State who already have enrolled through California's health insurance exchange. And another 2 million have been determined eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's program for the poor.

With exchange sign-ups in the state exceeding many projections for the first six months of open enrollment, health care experts say the federal law has worked in California pretty much as it was meant to -- despite startup hassles such as a glitchy website and hourlong waits to talk to a human being on the phone.

Brochures and handouts on the Affordable Care Act at a San Jose library, Oct. 1, 2013. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group) ( Josie Lepe )

"What California has done is kind of proof that the concept can work," said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Menlo Park-based Kaiser Family Foundation. But, he cautioned, "it's not a guarantee that it will work everywhere.''

Much of the reason it has been relatively smooth sailing in California, Levitt and other health care experts note, has to do with the groundwork laid years ago by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed legislation creating provisions that allowed the state to get a big head start on the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare. It also didn't hurt that the blue state received $1 billion in federal grants to help it build its own insurance exchange and pay for outreach, marketing and consumer assistance.

But there are still lingering questions about the long-term viability of Obamacare, California style.

Indeed, the things many California health consumers want to know -- from whether insurance premiums will go up next year to whether they should expect long waits for doctors' appointments or packed waiting rooms at hospitals -- won't be known for a while, Levitt and other experts say.

In part, it will be hard to characterize the exact "risk pool" the new exchange has created until the final enrollment numbers are counted and analyzed after April 15 -- the extended deadline for those who start but cannot finish their applications by Monday.

Even assessing the health status of many new enrollees -- Who is sick? Who is healthy? -- may be next to impossible unless they have sought medical care under their new policy and generated a medical record by May 1, when insurers need to submit their proposed 2015 rates to the exchange.

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Obamacare: California proving new health care law can work