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| Your Legal Rights | COBRA
 COBRA is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985. It is federal law that will help you keep your group health insurance longer.
If you have been worked for an organization that counted 20 or more employees, COBRA forces your ex-employer to allow you to stay on the group policy for at least 18 months, at your own expenses.
In case you get lavish coverage paid mainly by your employer, the full premium plus 2% for administrative costs could be quite a shock. Still, it is reasonable to stick to your old coverage until you are covered at a new work or find more admissible insurance anywhere else.
HIPAA
HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. It protects your right to insurance when you change your group plan to another or when you move from a group plan to an individual plan.
This law says that as long as you have been covered under a group policy within the foregoing 63 days, no insurance company can reject your coverage, even in case you are seriously ill.
Alas but HIPAA does not control premium costs so there is no guarantee that you can afford the insurance to which you are legally entitled.
The number of non insured people continues to rise. That’s why states have become increasingly active in helping individuals get insurance. However, cost continues to be a problem.
Some states have so-called “high-risk pools”. They guarantee health insurance to claimants whose health histories make them inappropriate to insurance companies.
Some states have other methods of making coverage more reasonable. New York, for example, forces insurance companies to use a modified “community rating” when pricing coverage, so they can't charge disproportionately high premiums to claimants in poor health.
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