[DennisP]

COBRA is not necessarily more expensive than individual insurance, if you're older.

COBRA charges the same premium as the group insurance you had with your employer, perhaps with a small surcharge tacked on. It's more out of your pocket simply because your employer isn't pitching in anymore.

If you're young and healthy, COBRA may cost more, since it's a rate for a group that probably includes older and sicker people. You're healthier than the average person in the group so individual insurance is cheaper.

But if you're older or sicker yourself, going with individual insurance means you no longer have those healthy young people propping up your insurer's profits, so you'll pay more with individual insurance. A friend of mine was charged quite a bit more, and wasn't even especially unhealthy.

Of course all this will change at the beginning of 2014.

[mapgrep]

COBRA coverage ends after 18 months, which makes it risky even when it's cheaper -- if you come down with a chronic illness (cancer, diabetes) in the meantime it will be much harder to find follow on coverage because now you have a precondition.

Or at least that's my understanding from my CPA who was trying to talk me out of using COBRA coverage. That conversation was before AHCA ("Obamacare") passed.

If the ban on precondition screening starts in 2014, perhaps it's safe to start COBRA this coming June.

[Stratoscope]

Are you in California or another state? I don't know about other states, but if you're in CA, your CPA is quite wrong. If you go on COBRA and use up both the 18 months of federal COBRA and the additional 18 months of CAL-COBRA, then you are entitled to a HIPAA guaranteed issue plan if you are declined for an underwritten plan. In fact you can apply for both simultaneously, and it's wise and customary to do just that.

I posted a couple of ca.gov links elsewhere in the comments with more information.

[DennisP]

Exactly but the ban starts on January 1, 2014. You can safely start COBRA now, since with the recent election there's no chance the law will be overturned before then, and little chance within the next four years. After that it'll be pretty well entrenched.

Here's a timeline of Affordable Care Act provisions: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/

Note that the law not only ensures you can get insurance, it prohibits insurers from charging higher premiums for people with preexisting conditions.

[tptacek]

It's interesting to consider that at this point, people are going to start planning things like COBRA coverage on the assumption that they'll be able to automatically obtain private coverage in 2014; this bolsters the case against any partial repeal of guaranteed issue, as it'll screw lots of people over if they do it.

[mapgrep]

Ah, good point!

[vivekajayshah]

In addition - if you live in California - Cal-COBRA covers you for 36 months, and also covers companies with less than 20 employees.

More info: http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0100-consumers/0070-health-issue...