For months, the officials in charge of building Minnesota’s health insurance exchange, MNsure, waved aside questions from lawmakers, policy analysts and reporters about rumors that the massive endeavor would not be done right – or on time. And because of the complexity of the underlying details, few were in a position to truly push them for hard answers. Last summer, MinnPost state capitol reporter James Nord, then one of just a couple of journalists following the exchange rollout, received a thick stack of documents from a whistleblower who was frustrated by the higher-ups’ rosy depictions. Decoding the evidence was laborious, but Nord was able to report that the officials knew there were significant problems with MNsure’s IT infrastructure, enrollment processes, eligibility determination, subsidy calculation, small-business purchasing and enrollment data transfer to the health carriers. The exchange’s then-executive director, April Todd-Malmlov, roundly dismissed the risks and defects highlighted in the documents. Nord kept receiving tips, and kept running them down. Eventually, other news organizations picked up on the story. When the exchange launched, each and every one of the problems raised in Nord’s reporting came to pass.
