Boehner enrolls in ObamaCare

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday found himself in the same boat as millions of frustrated Americans — struggling to sign up for health insurance through ObamaCare. At least for a while. 

The Speaker’s office released a first-person account from Boehner of his attempt to log on to DC Health Link, the exchange that the District of Columbia is using to offer insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

{mosads}“Like many Americans, my experience was pretty frustrating,” Boehner wrote.

His office included screen shots and photos of Boehner sitting at his computer.

The Speaker said he encountered an error message after putting in his personal information. After resolving that issue, he tried to sign up for coverage but faced a screen displaying the message: “Error 500- Internal Server Error.”

“Despite multiple attempts, I was unable to get past that point and sign up for a health plan,” Boehner wrote. “We’ve got a call into the help desk.  Guess I’ll just have to keep trying …”

A Boehner spokesman said Thursday evening that 45 minutes after the Speaker’s blog post was published, he received an email from the D.C. exchange telling him he was successfully enrolled.

Boehner had received a call back from the exchange a few hours after his first call, after two more tries on the website, officials confirmed he had enrolled.

Richard Sorian, a spokesman for DC Health Link, said in a statement that some users were receiving error messages even though they had successfully enrolled. 

“We recently discovered the fact that after enrollment, some users have been receiving a random error message,” Sorian said.

“Despite the message, these individuals have been enrolled. Our call center has been able to quickly resolve these matters. We are working on a system-wide update that will eliminate this soon. Users will be able to verify their enrollment in their secure, online account.”

The healthcare law requires members and their staff to enroll in the exchanges, and members have to enroll in D.C.

– Updated at 6:17 p.m.