HAHAHA God help us all.

MNsure wants to spend an additional $12.5 million this year to continue repairs to its website and call center, officials said Wednesday, as they unveiled plans for a balanced budget in 2015.

Jim Geraghty helpfully notes:

The state has spent about $100 million so far on creating its exchange. State officials had expected MNsure to enroll up to 1.3 million people for insurance by 2016… an increasingly unlikely goal.

More on that: Minnesota has so far signed up about 33K people for private plans, and another 82K for Medicaid. For those wondering, the 2013 goal for the Minnesota exchange – note: exchange – was 48K, and 160K by the end of this year. Again, that original estimate is independent of Medicaid expansion. That Minnesota is clearly instead going off of the beam is… not remotely surprising: generally speaking, the state exchanges have crashed and burned. Usually to the deep embarrassment of the generally Democrat-controlled legislatures that have set them up – like, say, Minnesota’s!

See, this is the problem with betting big. You can win big, sure. It’s often the only way to win big. But you can also lose big, too. And when you do, well, the sympathies of those around you will typically be, as they say, muted.

H/T:

Minnesota: We Need Another $12.5 Million for #ObamaCare Exchange Repairs http://t.co/3pIsYBDoxY
— My Cancellation (@MyCancellation) March 13, 2014

Moe Lane (crosspost)