I’m currently going through a divorce and my children were insured under my husband’s employer. My husband is losing his job and putting the kids under the insurance plan with my employer that will cost $700 a month, a prohibitively expensive cost. With my job, I make $150 too much money for the KidsCare program in Arizona. I researched private insurance and I can get coverage for $65 dollars a month per child through CIGNA, but they will not accept my daughter because of her pre-existing condition (we have CIGNA right now with my husband’s employer). I researched other web companies and they told me the same thing. What can I do?

Your opportunity to obtain health insurance is not limited to individual policies with pre-existing conditions. But, you must move quickly to investigate the rights you and your children have to comprehensive health insurance that are guaranteed by Federal law. First, you and your children are entitled to continue coverage in your ex-husband’s group plan through COBRA continuation coverage, without regard to what ever choices or decisions he makes. Your coverage would be exactly as it is now, except you will pay the complete cost of coverage directly to the employer’s group plan. You also have the right of conversion of the current group coverage to an individual policy for you and your children through the current insurer, also with no pre-exisitng condition exclusion. And, under the rights granted through the provisions of the HIPAA portability requirements, you and your children may be able to move into new coverage in an individual policy without a pre-exisitng waiting period. But, you may have to exhaust your COBRA continuation coverage first. A Consumer’s Guide to Getting and Keeping Health Insurance in Arizona, published by the Georgetown University School of Health Policy, is an excellent place for a detailed explanation of your rights to health insurance; especially the chapter titled Your Protections to Buying Health Insurance .

For more information about how you and your family can exercise their right for affordable health insurance coverage, visit their home page.

DSH