> Unravel it One thing is sure: MNsure is failing My 27-year old daughter asked me yesterday, “Could you please explain what this MNsure thing is? And give me the Peter Lynch version.” That was her way of saying, “make it quick, and easy to understand.” Lynch, one of the greatest investors of our time, never invested in a concept he couldn’t explain in three sentences, or draw with a crayon. This concept got me to thinking — what would Peter Lynch think of MNsure? Let’s start at the very beginning – what is it, and why was it created? In 2010, when the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare) passed at the federal level, it required every American citizen to have health insurance. The main goal was to provide health insurance to the millions of Americans who were uninsured. Whether you wanted it or not, the law required everyone to buy health insurance or pay a fine. Each state could choose to set up its own marketplace to sell the insurance or opt into the federally run marketplace. Minnesota, along with 16 other states, decided to set up our own and called it MNsure. The MNsure marketplace was prominent during the last legislative session. The bill went through an expedited committee process and passed through eight committees in five weeks before making it to the floors of each legislative chamber. It was rushed, and the warning signs were there. The then-executive director of MNsure, April Todd-Malmov, testified before the Legislature that we had to move this through fast because there wasn’t a lot of time to get it up and running. Todd-Malmov’s much publicized Costa-Rican vacation and a failed rollout of MNsure had her resigning in December. FAIL#1. During the bill’s journey to law, many questions and concerns were raised, only to have to DFL majority vote it through to the next committee. Serious problems were debated regarding the board, the oversight, the perceived “open marketplace” and the cost to the consumer. Could a working IT structure be put in place in such a short amount of time? We were assured repeatedly that was possible. We were sold a bill of goods that was supposed to promote innovation, competition and affordability, while simplifying choice and enrollment. Gov. Dayton, the DFL, Minnesota Management and Budget and the Departments of Human Services, Health, Commerce all supported this bill because 1.6 million Minnesotans would have better access to health insurance. To date, a disappointing 5 percent (80,000) of that number of people have enrolled, causing an internal investigation by the state auditor. FAIL#2. Mind you, $155 million has been spent so far on MNsure. At some point, you have to admit failure. How much more money can you throw at it, since fundamentally it is flawed? Even Apple’s Steve Jobs walked away from his entrepreneurial computer, LISA (named after his daughter), after spending a fruitless $50 million. Some things just aren’t worth spending any more on, which is why I asked Gov. Dayton to call a special session of the Legislature in December prior to the mandate taking effect. Let’s fix this — or end this — and stop tossing money at something that was broken before it started. MNsure is supposed to be a website marketplace to help facilitate the purchase of health insurance — a Travelocity of health insurance. Instead, the website isn’t working and people are forced to use the phone. FAIL #3 Telephone on-hold time averages 55 minutes on a good day. FAIL #4 Just this past week, Optum, an independent consultant unit of United-Health Group, published an outline of some fixes. The bottom line on their study — it can’t be fixed in time for the March 31, 2014 sign- up deadline. FAIL#5 To be fair, they did go over a few steps in how to make a bad thing less bad. However, to use a knitting analogy, if you make a mistake knitting a sweater in row five, the only way to fix that mistake is to unravel the whole thing and start over. MNsure should be unraveled — today. The Legislature and Gov. Dayton created this mess, so it’s up to the Legislature and Gov. Dayton to fix it. I would start with calling a special session to address the exact same questions we asked in the mere five weeks it took to make a multi-million-dollar bill into law. Why are there not any insurance professionals or IT experts sitting on the seven member board overseeing MNsure? Why does this board get to choose which companies are able to sell insurance through the marketplace? How will this be funded now that enrollment is down, proving it will lose money every year? Who is ultimately in charge of MNsure? Why has the cost of health insurance gone up for most people when we were told it would go down? How many previously uninsured people are now covered under MNSure? According to the Optum report, MNsure “assets may need to be written off – sunk costs.” Steve Jobs had to say goodbye to LISA, and before the State of Minnesota spends another dollar on MNsure, Gov. Dayton and the DFL should do the same. According to Peter Lynch, one should only invest in a business after a complete understanding of what it is doing. One thing is sure – MNsure is failing. Karin Housley, R-St. Mary’s Point, is a member of the Minnesota state Senate and author of Chicks Laying Nest Eggs, a Random Housepublished book on investments.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 23:52:20 +0000
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