Tech woes hobble MNsure; vexed lawmakers seek insurance fix

Updated: 7:45 p.m. | Posted: 5:55 p.m.

Minnesota consumers searching for health coverage ran into familiar frustrations Tuesday as MNsure's web site was overwhelmed and robocalls bombed the helpline.

For about a half-hour Tuesday morning, an error message greeted people logging on to the website of the government-backed health insurance exchange. A temporary fix allowed insurance sign-ups but left a comparison shopping tool MNsure has heavily promoted inaccessible, MNsure CEO Allison O'Toole said.

"I know it's frustrating for Minnesotans and what I will say to them is be patient. We will get to you," said O'Toole, adding that by some measures MNsure was 10 times busier this year than it was last year at the start of open enrollment season.

Officials are looking into thousands of automated calls that came into MNsure boosting average call center wait times to 34 minutes. MN IT — the state's technical arm — says it's investigating them as well as all of the website outages.

Scott Peterson, MN-IT's chief business technology officer, said officials were seeing "an inconsistent number of calls from certain numbers," so they were trying to determine exactly what was happening with those lines.

State technology officials say difficulties with MNsure's website were part of a broader problem with some 70 state websites that did not appear to be linked to the traffic surge on the exchange.

Despite the problems O'Toole said some 15,000 people were able to start applications and the agency served some 50,000 Minnesotans.

The problems on Tuesday echoed MNsure's disastrous 2013 debut, when technical and organizational problems led to the resignation of its first CEO. They came on the same day DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt met hoping to find a path toward a special legislative session to ease the pain of a huge cost hikes and shrinking options for many in Minnesota trying to buy health coverage not tied to their employer.

Those hikes — 50 percent to 67 percent rate increases in 2017 — are among the biggest nationwide for the plans ushered in by the federal Affordable Care Act.

Dayton and Daudt, R-Zimmerman, told reporters that lawmakers will start working to finalize a possible relief plan for those who've been hit by the high costs but who can't get federal subsidies.

"It's imperative ... that we've got something ready to go immediately after the election," Dayton said.

Dayton has proposed using a state budget surplus to issue rebates that would reduce the premium hikes down to a roughly 16 percent increase. In some cases, federal subsidies can offset the rate hikes entirely.

House Republicans have suggested a tax credit and other fixes to address concerns that health insurance may not be available in up to five Minnesota counties. Daudt was noncommittal on what shape the support may take but said the two sides agree action is needed.

"I think there is a common realization, that folks in the Legislature understand that we're going to need to help some folks. This is really a crisis for the Minnesotans that are going through it," Daudt said.

Daudt said lawmakers also need to ensure that all residents are able to pick a plan for next year. Most Minnesota insurers selling on the state's health insurance exchange or directly to consumers have instituted caps on how many plans they'll cover, leaving the prospect that coverage will sell out in five counties.

Minnesota is the only state with these kinds of caps, and that might have brought on the "unprecedented" traffic surge on MNsure's site on the first day of open enrollment, O'Toole said.

"We knew we'd have early traffic because people are worried about it. They're worried about getting financial assistance and we've had the heaviest open enrollment first day that we ever have," she said.

O'Toole says there are a couple of reasons so many Minnesotans are going to MNsure so early and not putting off their search for health insurance.

One reason is that for the first time, all but one of the insurance companies selling coverage are limiting the number of policies they're selling. So people want to make sure they don't get locked out of the coverage and provider network they want.

O'Toole also says massive increases in premiums have people flocking to the website to see if they qualify for federal tax credits that could make coverage more affordable.

As MNsure tries to move beyond the day one problems, O'Toole is reiterating her call for individual-market health insurance customers to start with MNsure because it's the only way to get premium subsidies. She says many eligible Minnesotans are leaving money on the table.

"Last year about 100,000 eligible Minnesotans didn't take advantage of these tax credits," she said. "Those Minnesotans lost an average of $210 a month or about $2,500 over the course of the year. 100,000 Minnesotans left money on the table and we don't want that to happen again."

Open enrollment runs through January of next year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.