Republicans and Democrats fight over MNsure fix

The rush to fix MNsure is on and lawmakers in St. Paul are at each other’s throats.

House Speaker Kurt Daudt was as fired up as he has been about MNsure and even threatened to call for the governor's resignation if he didn't feel he was working hard enough to fix the problems.

“The governor has known about this problem a lot longer than we have,” said Daudt. “I don't know if he's got every man and woman at DHS working 24/7 on this problem, but he better because that's how big of a problem this is.”

Daudt sent a two-page letter to Governor Mark Dayton Wednesday morning outlining what he sees are the biggest problems to fix. Among them are the program’s website and call center, which he doesn't think are up to speed to handle open enrollment come November 1.

“This letter is two full pages and says at the end of it we'll get back to you,” said Dayton.

Dayton criticized the letter as offering no solutions to the immediate problems, which is what the governor had asked for in his own letter he sent on Tuesday to legislative leaders.

“Tell us how you want to proceed, tells us when you want to proceed, come forward with ideas, we're working on it on our own,” said Dayton.

Dayton wants to use rainy day funds, about $313 million, to offset the soaring premiums and focus on that before addressing long-term fixes next year.

“I deplore it and we're going to do everything we can short-term to fix as much as we can and do everything we can next year to fix as much as we can at the state level,” said Dayton.

“It's time for the governor to step up and show some leadership and stop. If he wants to criticize me for drafting letters, he is literally the one that started it. Stop having press conferences, stop drafting letters, pick up the damn phone and let's solve the problem,” said Daudt.