COBRA lets you keep your employer’s health plan after leaving a job — usually up to 18 months — but you pay the full premium yourself, which is often a shock. You typically have 60 days to elect it.
COBRA continuation coverage means losing your job doesn’t have to mean losing your health plan: you can keep the exact same coverage, typically for up to 18 months (longer in some situations). The catch is cost — your employer stops subsidizing, so you pay the entire premium plus a small admin fee, often several times what came out of your paycheck. You generally have 60 days from notice to elect COBRA, and coverage is retroactive to the loss date if you do. Before electing, compare marketplace plans — losing job coverage is a qualifying event, and subsidized marketplace coverage is often cheaper than COBRA.
You pay the full cost of the plan — the share your employer used to cover plus your old share, and up to a small administrative fee.
Often — losing employer coverage triggers a special enrollment period for marketplace plans, which may come with income-based subsidies COBRA doesn’t offer.
Upload the actual document and Main AI reads every clause, flags the risks, extracts the deadlines, and cites the law — free to start, no signup to see your first analysis.
Run the Document Analyzer — free →