On Tuesday, April Todd-Malmlov resigned as executive director of Minnesota's health insurance exchange.
The personnel move followed a steady flow of bad news about the MNsure marketplace in recent weeks. Insurers have reported receiving inaccurate or incomplete information about enrollees. Individuals calling the state's helpline have been put on hold for more than an hour. Brokers complain that they can't sign people up for coverage without spending hours on the process.
“Brokers and agents are at a point where they have to turn away customers who want to use MNsure,” Alycia Riedl, president of the Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters, said at a MNsure board meeting on Wednesday.
Todd-Malmlov is the fourth top official of a state-run insurance exchange to depart since Oct. 1. She was preceded by executives for the Oregon, Maryland and Washington exchanges. That's a quarter of the 16 exchange directors nationwide. The online marketplace in Oregon remains inoperative with no timeline set for when individuals will be able to enroll through the website. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said this week that the technology problems plaguing the state's exchange had largely been fixed, but insurers continued to report difficulties signing people up. There's even talk of Maryland switching over to using the federal HealthCare.gov website.