ST. PAUL, Minn. – The MNsure board of directors has approved a pay hike for the state run health insurance exchange’s CEO.
David Montgomery of the Pioneer Press reports that MNsure CEO Allison O’Toole will receive a slight pay raise of $835. Her new salary will be $150,816 annually, whereas her previous salary sat at $149,981. O’Toole received the pay raise, and positive reviews, from the MNsure board of directors as part of a 40-minute long closed door meeting.
O’Toole has been the CEO of MNsure since May 2015, having previously worked as its Deputy Director for External Affairs. From 2011 to 2012 she served as the state director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office.
The Pioneer Press reports that MNsure’s board of directors was impressed with increases in enrollment, and what they saw as a stabilization of MNsure’s environment.
Earlier this year the Star Tribune reported that MNsure’s enrollment broke the six figure mark for the first time. In early January, enrollment was over 103,000 people, with the enrollment window still open at the time. This is still a far cry from where the program was expected to be however. In 2013, a consultant estimated that more than 400,000 people would be buying private coverage through MNsure by the end of 2016.
In total at around that same time, only 190,000 people had health insurance via the individual market, reports the Star Tribune. In the year prior that was the case for roughly 270,000 Minnesotans, resulting in a 30 percent decline from year to year.
Subsidies for people buying health care through MNsure have also risen. According to O’Toole, 62 percent of private health plan enrollees for 2017 are receiving tax credits, reported the Star Tribune. The average credit is $672 a month, or $8,000 per year. That’s about three times higher than the average subsidy going into the 2016 enrollment period.
