St. Paul (April 2, 2014) — MNsure, the state health insurance exchange,
released its enrollment numbers one day after the official deadline and
according to the National Federation of
Independent Business (NFIB) they expose the program as a “dramatic
failure.”
According to the exchange
only 693 small businesses have enrolled, far below the target of 8,925.
“These are incredibly low
numbers,” said NFIB State Director Mike
Hickey, “They undershot their target by 92 percent, which is a failure by
any standard.”
Overall small businesses
signups represented less than one percent of the total Minnesota signups.
“We predicted this would
happen,” said Hickey. “The limitations on the small business SHOP plans
are quite significant and these subsidized plans are not going to be available
to most small businesses.”
Hickey also pointed to all
the difficulties people have experienced trying to use the website and apply
for coverage on the website as a real impediment to small businesses.
“We spent approximately $160
million on a website in Minnesota that didn’t work and now people are actually resorting
to paper applications,” he said. “That’s
extremely troubling.”
For more information about
NFIB, please visit www.nfib.com.
