Who should be held accountable for MNsure’s website failures?

Avoiding the website
Becky Fink, a MNsure navigator, helps Mic-Ryan Freeman, 22, fill out a paper MNsure application for health insurance Monday, Feb. 10, 2014 at Nucleus Clinic in Coon Rapids. While the MNsure website continues to have problems, Fink encourages people to use the paper application, which Fink then faxes to MNsure for them. Jennifer Simonson/MPR News

"Using MNsure should have been easy for Becky Fink," write MPR News reporters Catharine Richert and Elizabeth Stawicki.

As a local clinic director, she'd been trained by the new health insurance exchange on how to help people sign up online.

But the site never worked for her even though she "tried, tried, many, many times, many times."

It wasn't her fault.

Fink was among thousands of other Minnesotans who saw MNsure's cheery Paul Bunyan TV ads and tried to use the site once it went live in October. Some had success, but others are still trying to get insurance or have given up all together.

But behind MNsure's upbeat façade was a swamp of management failures and tech glitches that would cripple the more than $100 million website.

MNsure leaders blamed tight deadlines and evolving federal requirements for the website's malfunctions.

However, internal MNsure documents and interviews with insurance company officials, county workers and other stakeholders reveal a more complicated story.

Today's Question: Who should be held accountable for MNsure's website failures?

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.