Who Is Eligible For Cobra Health Insurance? 
Persons eligible for coverage and who were covered under the employer 's group health plan as of the date of the termination of employment of the employee are eligible for COBRA continuation . Generally this means the employee themselves and possiblytheir spouse and/or children . The COBRA Federal continuation requirements apply to companies with more than 20 employees , groups smaller than this operate under guidelines from their state insurance commissions that vary from state to state and are often not totally consistent with COBRA legal requirements . The most notable area of difference usually being the period of time a person can continue their coverage through the group . As such , the size of the employer group a person is leaving can also determine whether or not COBRA applies to them at all . One of the reasons COBRA was originally implemented was to keep people with pre-existing medical conditions from immediately losing their health insurance coverage when they lost a job . Since January 1 , 2014 pre-existing condition exclusions and underwriting have been eliminated and all individual policies have become guaranteed to be issued . In addition , for individual health insurance plans bought through the government health insurance marketplaces people can be eligible for premium subsidies with income levels up to 400 % of the Federal Poverty Level . For these reasons , while COBRA continuation continues to exist , it is now only an option to be considered for an ex-employee and COBRA continuation is now often not the most cost effective option available . Exploring your options in the individual marketplace definitely makes sense and you should seek out the services of a health insurance broker who represents multiple carriers with products both inside and outside of the government marketplaces . 