By DON DAVIS, Forum News Service
ST. PAUL - Minnesotans may begin shopping for insurance online Tuesday, as a fundamental part of a new federal health law begins.
A majority of people receive health insurance via their employers and nearly all of those policies will continue as is. Those on government-subsidized health care, some small-business employees and people without insurance or who carry their own private insurance are the ones who may be attracted to government-run services known as “marketplaces” or “exchanges.”
MNsure is the Minnesota marketplace. It is a politically divisive program subject to extensive debate in the state Capitol, debate that continued as opening day neared.
Marketplaces such as MNsure are the foundation of federal health-care reform, popularly known as Obamacare.
Basically, a health-care marketplace gives people a way to compare and buy health policies on line, although the work also can be done via telephone or in person. The bulk of MNsure clients will be those who under current law would receive free or inexpensive coverage from federally funded Medical Assistance and state-subsidized MinnesotaCare.
Just 300,000 individuals not part of a government program are expected to buy policies through MNsure in the next two years. Some of them, if their income is low enough, will get federal help to reduce their premiums.
In the first couple of years, 1.3 million Minnesotans are expected to use the program. An estimated 150,000 Minnesotans are expected to get insurance their small-business employers buy through MNsure, with some companies eligible for reduced premiums.
Another 700,000 are projected to be Medical Assistance clients and 180,000 will come from MinnesotaCare.
As MNsure inched toward its launch, news reports have been peppered with controversy: a dust-up over using Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox as bumbling mascots, the agency not providing grants so minority communities could learn more about MNsure and an employee (now an ex-employee) emailing private information such as Social Security numbers of insurance brokers to an insurance agent.
Starting what amounts to a major business in a few months (the law establishing MNsure passed in March) has been a major undertaking, but agency officials say they expect the launch to go on as planned Tuesday.
There are warnings that Minnesotans should not expect perfection.
“This may not all work, and it is not because people are not working hard,” said MNsure board member Tom Forsythe, urging agency staffers to be open about potential problems. “Transparency is our friend. ... We would be better served if we had been telling everybody these things.”
Another board member, Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson, agreed that there could be glitches. “We need to be realistic about expectations and celebrate the steps of progress.”
She added that “The staff are working nearly around the clock to get a secure enrollment system up and running.”
MNsure Executive Director April Todd-Malmlov said the project is so complex that it always has been considered to be at “red status,” meaning there are lots of places where things can go wrong.
