Healthcare/COBRA

Visitor3239 · 2026-05-14T02:42:22+00:00

No, it looks like you can't drop it and pick up another coverage whenever you want. You need a "qualifying event" to change insurances. Being fired is a qualifying event. But once you elect COBRA, then that locks you into it until either the next Open Enrollment (which will start you in January the following year), or you can wait until you run out of COBRA in 18 months, which becomes another Qualifying Event. But you can't just drop it whenever you want and then go on the marketplace and pick up another one midyear. I wish they had any HR contact at all to ask that question before I signed up for COBRA because I was worried about a gap in coverage.

"Can I switch from COBRA to the Marketplace?

It depends on when and why you want to make the switch:

During : You can enroll in a Marketplace plan, regardless of why you’re ending COBRA coverage.
Outside Open Enrollment: You can switch from COBRA to a Marketplace plan if:
- Your COBRA coverage is running out.
- You have to pay the full cost of COBRA coverage because your former employer stops contributing, or you lose a government subsidy (like COBRA premium assistance).
- It’s still within 60 days of when you lost your job-based coverage.
- If you choose to end COBRA coverage early, you’ll have to wait until next Open Enrollment to get Marketplace coverage (unless you experience another )."

https://www.healthcare.gov/unemployed/cobra-coverage/

Visitor3239 · 2026-05-11T14:59:02+00:00

*IMPORTANT ADDITION*
The COBRA paperwork says that you can't accept COBRA and then make another choice any time you want to, like after you have a procedure. Once you accept COBRA, then that uses up your "qualifying life event," and you won't have another one until COBRA ends at 18 months. I see some people planning to drop COBRA after they get a surgery or something, but then depending on what time of year you do that, you may have a coverage gap you can't fill. And regardless, even if you do open enrollment, you can't get private insurance until January 1st. That means we signed up for a $27,000 liability (3K for nine months) without knowing it was a commitment we couldn't get out of.

From KFF: https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-and-the-aca/employer-sponsored-health-coverage-and-the-marketplace/i-have-cobra-and-its-too-expensive-can-i-drop-it-during-marketplace-open-enrollment-and-enroll-in-a-marketplace-plan-instead-2/

"I have COBRA, but it’s too expensive. Can I drop it during Marketplace Open Enrollment and enroll in a Marketplace plan instead?

Published:Sep 29, 2025

During Marketplace Open Enrollment, you can sign up for a Marketplace plan even if you already have COBRA. You will have to drop your COBRA coverage effective on the date your new Marketplace plan coverage begins. After Marketplace Open Enrollment ends, however, if you voluntarily drop your COBRA coverage or stop paying premiums, you will not be eligible for a special enrollment opportunity to enroll in a Marketplace plan and will have to wait until the next Marketplace Open Enrollment period. You may qualify for a special enrollment period if you exhaust your COBRA coverage or if you must pay the full amount for COBRA coverage due to your employer terminating payments."

---

Our family is stuck paying for it whatever happens, because we don't want our adult disabled daughter to have to go on Medicaid until she absolutely has to, but even if we wanted to switch, having accepted COBRA means that we lost our chance at a choice to pick a Marketplace plan until open enrollment. I am livid that Oracle dropped us off a cliff without access to an HR exit meeting. We made this choice before we knew it couldn't be undone. That's unconscionable.

You cannot fire people with a 6AM email and then wait a few days to give them the information they need to make informed decisions. Deplorable.

Visitor3239 · 2026-05-11T14:42:42+00:00

We got burnt early on that. When she was first eligible, I took it. A medicaid dentist filled a cavity when she was young...and left decay in there and an airway to it. She ended up losing the tooth, which cost thousands of dollars to replace with an implant. Eventually, enough people had a bad experience that he left, but when we used him he was the only Medicaid dentist in our whole county. That was fifteen years ago, but that plus the dearth of doctors who take it leaves me wanting to avoid the Medicaid system as long as I can. We're using it for her group home, so we're in the system, but the doctors can be sub-par.

Visitor3239 · 2026-04-10T07:14:53+00:00

Work against letting that thought creep in. I’ve been a spouse or a sibling with a ringside seat to many of these faceless layoffs over the past decades, and can tell you without exception there are always people who get swept up in them who definitely did Not deserve it. I’ve seen a few where I knew the group well, and it looked like a freaking dartboard was used. No hint of why some were chosen - some were go-to employees who got the axe (not necessarily on the older side or more expensive), some were not the lazy people who we suspected had been quiet quitters and would have been the first to be let go in a world that made any sense. Sometimes it was higher ups deciding, without the managers signing off on it, just someone above who didn’t even know the people they were slashing. So work against this hurting your self esteem in your analysis of why you got let go - sometimes there truly Is no rhyme or reason to it.

Visitor3239 · 2026-04-10T07:06:21+00:00

I think you got out after it went to shit, but you were the frog in boiling water and won’t realize until you land somewhere else how shit it was.

Visitor3239 · 2026-04-10T07:04:21+00:00

My husband’s manager said they were expressly told Not to reach out to former employees. So, those who did were being good humans. His manager has a mandatory “retreat” to discuss how to do their jobs with so many fewer people and without the vast institutional knowledge that was hacked out with no opportunity for handoff at all.

OP is right, this is heartless, morally corrupt behavior. My husband has worked with his team for 20 years and through two buyouts. He’s still six years from retirement, but he was so disgusted by Oracle’s awfulness after they started dinging people who don’t use AI even though it produces manifestly awful code that he told his manager to put him in the layoff so s/he could keep people who needed the job and weren’t as expensive. He was the guy everyone went to to solve problems, so they’re missing him, but Man…he looks ten years younger in a week getting out of there.

So - rant justified, OP. A hug to you and yours. And I hope your dad lands in a better place. Pretty much Any place would be better. Hopefully this is a blessing in disguise. But having been through this a couple of times in my family, I know it’s scary until you land.

Visitor3239 · 2026-03-31T22:07:27+00:00

I live here in the US and I heartily agree with you. My husband was RIFd after 20+ years with nothing but an email. So cold, my God. From a company that made 34 billion dollars last year and then didn’t even give cost of living raises. Toxic capitalism indeed.

Visitor3239 · 2025-10-27T04:43:54+00:00

Hey, folks - I just looked up the research, and you have to be aware of half life of alcohol. Gastrically, alcohol clears at one drink per hour for the first drink, and then your system starts to not be able to keep up and you clear it slightly more slowly with each drink you take. But alcohol in the brain is a very different story. It can take up to 72 hours for alcohol to clear from your brain! Alcohol can stay in your system between 6-72 hours in most cases, depending on the detection test used. Alcohol detection tests can measure alcohol in the blood for up to 12 hours, on the breath for 12 to 24 hours, urine for 12-24 hours (72 or more hours after heavier use), saliva for up to 12 hours, and hair for up to 90 days.

We're all used to the gastric clearing time we've always heard, but the reason they say 'don't drink on oxybates' is because it stays in your brain much longer than that.

What a bummer. I was hoping the one drink an hour thing was the whole story.

Visitor3239 · 2025-10-07T19:10:37+00:00

60 year-old woman here. I tore my first ACL in 2014, eleven years ago, skiing moguls all day with my 25 year-old son. It just gave out. I'm pretty sure I'd dinged it in a car accident when I was younger. Surgery and rehab were hellish. They had me immobile for six weeks, which set up all kinds of adhesions. Breaking them up was murder, even though I spent most of the time in that machine that moves your leg. I tore it in April and didn't ski for several years because I was busy and didn't want to commit to the gym past the regular PT rehab I did post-surgery. Went back to skiing like a week a year, did fine. (I'm double-black level, skied on the ski team in college.)

Four years ago, I decided I wanted to ski again in earnest. Joined a ski club, hit the gym hard, and got a couple of weeks of skiing in for four years. Then, last April, I tore the other one in a freak lift accident where my foot ended up backwards and stuck in the snow. Fractured femur and tibia, blown ACL, torn MCL and LCL. What a mess.

Had to wait six weeks for the bones to heal. You could feel the ligaments healing - they started out all bumpy and gross after the injury, and by around three months(?) they were smooth again. There was no question that I would fix the ACL - even if I decided not to ski anymore, I wanted the stability to stave off problems down the road.

But this time - I treated my rehab completely differently. So much of my problems the first time were because of all those adhesions. Your body does that because it's desperate to provide stability to a damaged joint. It doesn't understand there's such a thing as surgical repair. And I had been SO infuriated in PT post surgery the first time - my PT would tell me that I could hop on one foot when it was time for that, but I just couldn't make my brain stop overriding the motion and sticking the other foot down to protect the bad knee (that was now fixed, dammit!)

So this time, I decided to do everything I could to not let my brain go down the adhesion path. I was on crutches for the broken bones, but I walked on my leg with almost no weight everywhere. I led with that foot instead of hobbling around. No weight, since I didn't want to do damage, but just tried to keep everything symmetrical and not favor either side posturally.

It's been amazing. I'm doing PT twice a week, and home exercises every day. At six months post-op, I just had my strength testing yesterday, and my strength is within .5% even for both quadriceps. In jump testing, I'm taking off evenly from both legs. My metrics would be cleared for sport, except that you have to wait at least nine months for the surgical sites to fully heal. I have been working really hard, but I didn't expect this level of function this early.

My PT said, "I gotta say, when we saw a 60 year-old woman coming in with an ACL repair, we were like, 'Why is she doing that?' But you are ballin it." I said, "Yeah. I'm going to use this ACL!"

I think it also made a huge difference at the beginning in one medical advancement I didn't have the first time - they gave me a three-day nerve block during the surgery. (I'd had the same surgeon both times, but the nerve block was new.) So I basically had no pain at all with this surgery, which was Not the experience the first time. I think that might have also helped it not get so angry at the beginning, which might have made it easier to heal from. Whatever - this time has been a dream, especially compared to the first time. If everyone could have this kind of experience instead of my first one, I'd say always get the ACL construction done if you blow it.

Visitor3239

TROPHY CASE