Start with the date
Your Marketplace clock starts when coverage ends
Losing job-based health coverage creates a special enrollment period. You can select a Marketplace plan during the 60 days before your coverage ends or the 60 days after it ends. The clock is tied to the date the health coverage ends, not to your final workday.
If the coverage already ended, select a plan within 60 days of that end date. If it will end soon, you can select a plan in advance and arrange for the new coverage to begin the day after the old coverage stops. Enrol after the loss and coverage generally starts on the first day of the following month (HealthCare.gov).
Losing a job and losing health coverage are not always the same date. Check the termination notice, the benefits portal or the plan administrator for the exact day coverage ends. That is the date everything else counts from.
If you never had employer coverage, being uninsured does not by itself create a special enrollment period. Outside annual Open Enrollment you need another qualifying event — but Medicaid and CHIP applications stay open all year.
COBRA
COBRA keeps the same plan and sends you the full bill
COBRA is a federal continuation right. It lets eligible workers and family members temporarily keep the same employer plan after certain events end it. The benefits, copays, deductible and coverage limits generally stay the same.
The price does not. The employer usually stops contributing, so the plan may charge up to 102% of the total premium: your old share, the employer's old share, and up to 2% for administration. That is why a plan that felt cheap on a payslip becomes expensive the moment coverage ends.
Federal COBRA generally applies to private employers with at least 20 employees in the prior year, and to state and local government plans. Where it does not apply, state continuation laws sometimes do (Department of Labor).
The clocks: 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice reaching you, then 45 more days to make the first payment. Coverage back-fills to the day the old plan lapsed once you elect and pay, which makes waiting inside the window a real option rather than a gamble. The full set of deadlines, and the two mistakes that cost people money
The Marketplace
Marketplace savings use this year’s projected income
The Health Insurance Marketplace sells private comprehensive plans. A job loss can open the special enrollment period, and the application checks whether you qualify for a premium tax credit that lowers the monthly premium.
Savings are based on household size and estimated household income for the year the coverage applies — not on whether you are currently employed, and not on last year's wages. A mid-year job loss can pull your expected annual income down substantially.
For 2026 coverage the temporary expansion of premium tax credits has ended and the 400%-of-poverty cutoff applies again. Above that line the credit disappears entirely rather than tapering. Income is only one test: access to other qualifying coverage and tax-filing status matter too (IRS).
Report income changes to the Marketplace when they happen. Advance credits are reconciled on your tax return, and crossing the cutoff can mean repaying them.
Medicaid
Medicaid has no annual enrollment period
Medicaid can be applied for in any month of the year. There is no Open Enrollment deadline, and you can apply again even if you were found ineligible before.
Eligibility depends on your state and circumstances — income, household, age, pregnancy, disability and other categories. A Marketplace application screens for Medicaid and CHIP automatically, or you can apply through the state agency directly (Medicaid.gov).
Do not skip this because last year's income was too high. The state has to make the determination on your current circumstances, and a job loss changes them.
Family coverage
Check a spouse’s plan and a parent’s plan immediately
Losing other coverage can create a special enrollment right in a spouse's employer plan. Federal rules require the plan to allow at least 30 days to request enrollment after the loss. That window is half the Marketplace one, so contact the benefits office first, not last.
For a parent's job-based plan, a child can generally join or stay covered until age 26 — even if married, living elsewhere, not in school, not claimed as a tax dependent, or offered coverage at their own job. Adding them outside the employer's annual enrollment still needs a qualifying event (HealthCare.gov).
An available spouse's plan can affect Marketplace subsidy eligibility if the offer meets federal affordability and minimum-value rules. Report the offer accurately on the application rather than assuming that declining it protects a credit.
Short-term plans
Short-term insurance is not a substitute for coverage
Short-term health insurance is limited temporary coverage that is not subject to the federal protections applying to comprehensive individual plans.
A short-term plan can use your health status to price or refuse you, exclude pre-existing conditions, cap what it pays annually or for life, and leave out prescriptions, maternity care, preventive care and mental-health treatment. Read the exclusions and caps before comparing its premium to a Marketplace plan — you are not comparing the same product.
- Federal rules limit a new short-term contract to 3 months initially and 4 months in total including renewals.
- Some states prohibit these plans outright or impose tighter limits.
- The end of short-term coverage generally does not open a Marketplace special enrollment period, so a plan that expires outside Open Enrollment can leave no route into comprehensive coverage.
The bottom line
Protect the deadline before comparing prices
Get the exact date the old coverage ends. If it is within 60 days, the Marketplace window is open — use it before it closes. At the same time ask about a spouse's or parent's plan, because that request window may be only 30 days.
Then price COBRA, note its 60-day election deadline, and remember the first payment falls due 45 days after you elect. Apply for Medicaid whenever you like; there is no deadline. Treat short-term insurance as a last resort, after reading what it excludes.
