An Iowa City man may have the distinction as the Hawkeye State’s first Obamacare enrollee, but it didn’t come easy. Edward Voss, a computer programmer, told the Des Moines Register he had to try more than 100 times before he was ultimately able to sign into HealthCare.gov.

Voss said he didn’t know whether or not he had actually enrolled in a plan until CoOportunity Health, one of Iowa’s two carriers in the exchange, called him on Friday to congratulate him for being its first enrolled customer.


Even though he was eventually successful, Voss criticized the website for resembling one from the 1990s, saying it was one of the worst he’s seen. He recommended that the administration consider shutting the site down for at least a week in order to address the problems. “It’s “hard to fix things while you’re up and running,” he said.