By David Montgomery

St. Paul Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL — More than twice as many people have signed up for health insurance through the state-run MNsure exchange as had done so at this time last year.

The faster pace puts MNsure 80 percent of the way to its enrollment target with another month of open enrollment remaining. MNsure’s CEO called the numbers “very encouraging,” but a key legislative critic said the higher enrollment isn’t nearly enough.

As of Dec. 28, 67,680 Minnesotans had signed up for private health insurance on MNsure. One year ago, on Jan. 1, 2015, there were 28,217 MNsure enrollees, less than half the current figure.

Open enrollment continues until Jan. 31. Last year’s open enrollment, which lasted until Feb. 15, saw a total of 60,092 sign-ups — more than half of them after New Year’s Day.

“The message of MNsure saving people money is resonating,” said Allison O’Toole, MNsure’s CEO.

But critics say MNsure’s faster enrollment pace is too little, too late.

“There’s nothing to celebrate about here. It’s a total disaster, a total failure,” said Rep. Greg Davids, a Preston Republican who chairs the House Taxes Committee. “They’re so far below what we were promised.”

Davids referred to a 2013 study by MIT professor Jonathan Gruber and Gorman Actuarial LLC, which projected 450,000 MNsure enrollees by 2016. MNsure abandoned those projections several years ago and based its budget for next year on a target of 83,000 enrollees.

State Sen. Tony Lourey, DFL-Kerrick and the sponsor of the bill to create MNsure, said the higher enrollment is good news.

“It definitely shows progress,” Lourey said. He rejected criticisms that the increased enrollment wasn’t enough.

“They would have a sound budget going into the future, according to their projections,” Lourey said.

But he noted that a legislative task force is scheduled to make recommendations this month on MNsure’s future. Among the options on the table are keeping the exchange as it is, abolishing it and handing its functions over to the federal government, or making subtler reforms to try to make MNsure work better.

Possibly driving higher enrollment rates are large premium increases for many health plans on the individual market — some up as much as 50 percent. Those increases apply to plans bought on MNsure or directly from insurers.

But low- and middle-income customers could qualify for federal tax credits if they buy their plans on MNsure, possibly defraying some of the cost. O’Toole hopes those subsidies attract more customers to MNsure than past years, when MNsure’s subsidies weren’t as generous.

It’s unclear how many of the 67,680 enrollees so far qualify for subsidies. That’s data MNsure won’t have until its board meeting next week, spokesman Shane Delaney said.

A month ago, 70 percent of the nearly 18,000 people who had enrolled by that time qualified for subsidies — a significant increase over last year’s average, around 55 percent.

Around 40 percent of the 67,680 enrollees so far this year are new to MNsure, while the rest — around 40,000 people — are existing MNsure customers.

The 67,680 figure, and the Jan. 1 figures from last year, reflect people signing up for health insurance — and not whether those people took the final step of paying insurers. MNsure spokesman Shane Delaney said that typically about 90 percent of enrollees actually take that final step.

Follow David Montgomery at twitter.com/dhmontgomery.

—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.