Since the Oct. 1 launch of the online health care exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, much of the media focus has remained on the federal exchange and the long list of problems that have plagued its launch.

Yet as the Timberjay has reported in recent weeks, Minnesota’s own statewide health insurance exchange, known as MNsure, has problems of its own.

One of the most perplexing is an apparent error in the system that has essentially denied premium subsidies to potentially thousands of Minnesotans who have signed up for health insurance under MNsure and who should have qualified for some level of assistance based on their income.

The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is based on a fundamental sharing of responsibility when it comes to health care costs. Under the law, the government requires all of us to have health insurance, but guarantees it will do its part to make those insurance premiums affordable to all. The law achieves this in several ways. First, it greatly expands eligibility for Medicaid, or Medical Assistance, which will now provide essentially free insurance to hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who didn’t qualify before because they earned too much money.

Many of those who don’t quality for Medical Assistance may still qualify for low-cost MinnesotaCare, or will qualify for tax credits to help buy down the cost of private sector health insurance purchased through MNsure.

The problem is, the MNsure system has failed to properly calculate the eligibility for these various forms of assistance for potentially thousands of Minnesotans who have sought health insurance through the new system. According to insurance agents in St. Louis County, who have signed up to assist those seeking to enroll in health care options through MNsure, the new online exchange is routinely denying consumers any tax credit, even though they should qualify based on their income.

It’s left thousands of enrollees essentially in limbo, as they wait for MNsure officials to fix the problem. In the meantime, those who have enrolled still have no idea what they’ll actually need to pay for the insurance coverage they are supposed to have purchased by Dec. 23, to take effect on Jan. 1.

It’s a perplexing situation given that MNsure officials were advised of the issue by insurance agents and other “assisters” almost two months ago. It’s only after a flood of complaints that MNsure officials seemed to acknowledge the problem. They now say they are working to fix the glitch, by double-checking thousands of enrollment forms, and that everyone should have corrected information in time to meet enrollment deadlines. At this point, the thousands of Minnesotans affected by this glitch can only keep their fingers crossed.

For many reasons, state officials have an obligation to get this right. For one thing, provisions of the Affordable Care Act prohibited some of the lower cost health insurance options that many Minnesotans used to purchase. These plans often included high deductibles, benefit limits, and many other limitations, but at least they were relatively affordable. While none of these plans have been cancelled in Minnesota (since Minnesota is a guaranteed-issue state), insurance companies have been forced to improve the benefits these plans offer, and that has pushed premiums substantially higher.

Until MNsure can provide these Minnesotans with a health insurance product that truly is affordable, it will not have fully delivered on the promise of affordable care under the Affordable Care Act. With deadlines rapidly approaching, MNsure needs to fix such problems now.