COBRA is OK in theory, but as you mentioned it is prohibitively expensive. During the gap between my last employer and current I opted to just take my chances f

COBRA is OK in theory, but as you mentioned it is prohibitively expensive. During the gap between my last employer and current I opted to just take my chances for the month because the cost for even a single person was outrageous. I think that you can retroactively apply it if you do end up needing the insurance, but you'll be on the hook for the cost of the entire time period until you elected it. I could be wrong though, every person I talked to told me different things and it's extremely confusing to navigate. It's a pretty terrible system all in all, IMO.