The Banana Republic of Minnesota: After Action Report

I attended a meeting of the MNsure Board of Directors this afternoon in St. Paul.  I do not recommend the experience to others.  MNsure is the state government agency overseeing the start up of Minnesota’s Obamacare health insurance exchange.  MNsure’s Board is the body that is supposed to be overseeing the agency.  As Board members themselves were quick to point out, they neither have nor will they exercise any such authority.  It turns out that the buck stops…well, it never stops.

The insurance exchange is scheduled to begin operations on October 1^st.   The big controversy in today’s meeting was over MNsure’s awarding of $4 million in grants, spread over 30 organizations, to promote Obamacare across the state.  The grants were funded by Federal taxpayers.
But we began the meeting today with the obligatory sob story.  I’m not kidding.

Each Board meeting schedules a time to hear from a health consumer on how the health exchange will save their life.  Today’s guest did not appear in person, but was heard by speakerphone.   Through her frequent weeping, I could not make out her story.

The July sob story, Sally Downing, turns out to have been an activist with TakeAction Minnesota.  TakeAction is a local progressive political charity, and a group that lobbied hard for the creation of MNsure.

The August sob story, James Kanne, turns out to have been a Democrat candidate in 2012 for the state House of Representatives, District 16B.

More than an hour and a half into the meeting, we finally took up the issue of the 30 grants.  I won’t rehash my entire Banana Republic series here, but my objections centered on a half-dozen of what appeared to be the least-worthy grantees, all of whom have strong ties to the ruling Democrat party.  These objections were raised by Republican state legislators in a legislative committee hearing yesterday, which was documented in the local media [here and here].

Of course the big news in the local media was the denial of grants to African-American and Somali community groups.  Of the 109 applicants, around 10 were long-standing non-profits serving local African-American and Somali communities.   All were shut out.

Obamacare—and its local variant, MNsure—was conceived by Democrats, supported by Democrats, and now administered by Democrats to serve a largely Democrat constituency.  So, having Democrat lawmakers, Democrat-supporting nonprofits and labor unions criticizing the local Obamacare operation was an irresistible “man-bites-dog” story for sympathetic local media.

The result: MNsure “found” another $750,000 to pay off the snubbed non-profits.

This Associated Press (AP) story on the additional $750,000 was typical of the coverage,

Board members were quick to agree with criticisms raised by Democratic state lawmakers and echoed Wednesday morning by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton that an initial $4 million in grants improperly left out prominent groups such as the Minneapolis Urban League…

Democrats are mentioned in the AP piece four times and Republicans zero.  That is because Democrat concerns about omitted groups were addressed and Republican concerns about unworthy grantees were completely ignored by the Board and MNsure staff.  In a one-party rule Banana Republic like Minnesota, petty officialdom knows who must be appeased and who can be overlooked.

In typical liberal fashion, more spending solves all problems.  Worthy applicants overlooked?  “Find” more money to make more grants.  Unworthy grantees exposed?  “Find” more money to fund more worthy grantees.  The unworthy grantees still keep their money.  Santa Claus never recalls gifts once down the chimney.

At no time did the Board or staff give any indication that they understood this money belongs to the taxpayers and they hold it in trust.  Even for this two-tour veteran of the public sector, the arrogance on display this afternoon was breathtaking.

[P.S. As an aside, I have done a lot of project management work in the past two decades.  To this observer, MNsure looks like a catastrophe waiting to happen in about three weeks.  I have seen the pattern before—arrogance in leadership, corner-cutting by staff facing hard deadlines, refusal to submit to oversight, playing fast and loose with budget categories, bristling at criticism, the list goes on.  And it never ends well.]