Being speaker of the House doesn’t make it any easier to sign up for health care coverage using the troubled federal website. Just ask John Boehner.
The Ohio Republican says he had to re-start the process several times while spending four hours trying to sign up at HealthCare.gov.
At one point Thursday, Boehner tweeted his frustration — “Guess I’ll just have to keep trying” — along with photos of himself at a computer and the error message he says he received. The House speaker has 583,000 followers on Twitter.
Nearly an hour after his tweet, Boehner received an email confirming he was signed up, his spokesman said.
Boehner’s effort comes as Republicans crank up a highly organized effort to capitalize politically on the troubled rollout of the health care law’s website, as well as millions of Americans receiving policy cancellations.
Congressional Democrats are squirming over potential political fallout from those problems ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
President Barack Obama has apologized for problems related to his signature health care law. Administration officials have said the website, unveiled on Oct. 1, will be working better by the end of this month.
(AP)
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2 Responses
He has 4 hours to spend on that?
1. Why did Mr. Boehner not tweet the news when he successfully signed up? Why did he leave it to a spokesman to put out the word in slower media channels?
2. Does this mean Mr. Boehner is willing to trade his Congressional/federal benefits for private-sector coverage that lots of us struggle to obtain and pay for, and pay for the gaps in coverage versus his Congrssional/federal plan?
3. What is the targetted sign-up time for the Obamacare web site? What does Mr. Boehner think the targetted time should be? And when that target is achieved, will Mr. Boehner drop his objections to Obamacare?
4. And, finally, when will Republicans regret that the word they coined – “Obamacare” – has become a permanent and respected label for the program they fought so hard to derail? I would say, admittedly with some optimism, that by 2016, their opposition to Obamacare is what helps the Democratic presidential nominee win the White House.