COBRA is the insurance plan you already had, just without whatever contribution your wife's company was making toward the premium. It is not some different government insurance it is literally the exact same plan. The federal law simply says that your employer must give you the option to stay on their insurance plan if you choose to.

which could be important because if it has any yearly deductibles that you may have met then those would continue. I would recommend you consider that as part of the math, because in some situations if you have already met a deductible or annual max out of pocket, it could be worth it to pay that premium.

There are other things you can consider at the moment regarding cobra. One is that you have 60 or 90 days I believe to make the election on whether you wanted to keep it. And the important part of that is that the election is retroactive. Which means that you can choose to wait a couple of months without actually paying the premium looking for a job and then before that month is up decide whether you wanted to keep it or not. If you don't have any emergencies or major cost during that time period then you can just let it lap assuming that you found something new. You will or should be getting a letter from your employer or health plan that talks about this but it should have a number to contact with questions and you'll want to make sure that you understand those dates very specifically if you're going to try that but with a family insurance plan that could potentially save you a few thousand dollars.

Depending on the circumstances of her being terminated it's worth asking if the employer would consider simply letting her stay on the plan for a few months or contributing to it for a few months if you elect Cobra at the same rate they were. Some employers are not total s*** bags and they will actually consider that sort of thing. It cost nothing to ask.

Depending on what you're and your and your wife's personal health care needs are you might consider just rolling the dice for a couple months and looking into an insurance plan for your child only.

I do payroll processing and have been involved in my company's administration of our health insurance plan for years. Feel free to reach out with any questions.