One of the most important reasons migrants from Compact of Free Association nations come to Hawaii is to obtain something they can’t get at home — proper, affordable health care. But that’s proven a challenge in itself.

Many eligible COFA migrants need to get health care through the federal government’s healthcare.gov. But the language barriers — many COFA migrants speak languages not commonly translated — as well as a lack of necessary records and credit histories may have contributed to a drop in health insurance enrollments.

So it’s encouraging that the federal government will extend the 2016 enrollment period for eligible COFA migrants until Feb. 15, 2016. Otherwise, they would be out of luck: The regular deadline to avoid a gap in health insurance coverage was Dec. 17.

That’s healthy news all around.