Hard to feel any sympathy for the Dem staffers.
Via Politico:
Capitol Hill staffers are hitting multiple obstacles in trying to enroll in the Obamacare exchange just days before the federal government’s deadline for getting coverage.
They and lawmakers have until Monday to sign up on DC Health Link, the District’s insurance exchange, if they want to maintain the government’s generous employer contribution to their health insurance.
But as crunch time approaches, Democratic and Republican staffers are getting error messages, denials, notices that they’re enrolled in multiple plans and incomplete confirmation — as well as a website that went down briefly Thursday.
Officials at DC Health Link say that they are working quickly to fix each problem. But the snags are causing a lot of frustration and grief.
“Anyone else not able to log in or use [the site]?” Jessica Vanden Berg, chief of staff to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), wrote late Thursday to other Democratic chiefs of staff in an email obtained by POLITICO. “No one in my office can today.”
In response to the continued issues, the House chief administrative officer asked the Office of Personnel Management to immediately ensure that members and staff can enroll and get a proper confirmation notice.
“With the end of the open enrollment period drawing near, we have made the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and DC Health Link aware of the significant problems preventing Members and staff in Washington D.C. and in district offices from enrolling in a healthcare plan via the DC Health Link website,” Strodel wrote in an email circulated to the Hill on Thursday night.
Several staffers said that any log-in name they entered on the website came back with a rejection notice or that once they enrolled, they didn’t get an actual confirmation of coverage, making many nervous that they’d be uninsured as of Jan. 1. Their experiences parallel some of the troubles that million of Americans confronted following the disastrous launch of the federal HealthCare.gov portal.