ST. PAUL — Minnesota’s legislative auditor said Wednesday he plans to conduct a thorough, independent review of the troubled launch of Minnesota’s health insurance exchange.

“The evaluation will be a comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of many issues related to the development of the website but also many other issues as well,” Legislative Auditor Nobles told a House-Senate MNsure oversight committee. The exact scope of the inquiry is still being determined, he said.

Republican lawmakers had hoped to use Wednesday’s hearing to raise questions about what Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and other administration officials knew about MNsure’s problems in the weeks before its Oct. 1 rollout, and when they knew it. But they said afterward that they’re confident Nobles will do a thorough job.

GOP Sens. Michelle Benson and Sean Nienow and Reps. Tara Mack and Joe Hoppe issued a statement Monday saying they wanted current and former Dayton administration and MNsure officials to testify about why they decided to go live with a website “that simply was not and currently is not ready for consumers.”

That followed a report by the Star Tribune of Minneapolis on Sunday that MNsure leaders chose to launch the system even though they knew it was loaded with bugs and that MNsure’s executive director at the time, April Todd-Malmlov, warned the governor at a meeting 12 days before the system went live that nobody was certain if it would work.

The Republicans drew an angry response Tuesday from Dayton, who called their plan a “farce” and accused MNsure’s critics of waging a propaganda campaign to destroy the exchange. His human services commissioner, Lucinda Jesson, canceled her scheduled appearance before the committee.

Dayton said the focus now should be on the good things MNsure has accomplished, not the computer glitches and long call center waits that made it difficult for consumer to sign up during its early months.