Private insurance has always had the chance of being cheaper if you could get it - COBRA's advantage was in cases with preexisting conditions. Since this is in

Private insurance has always had the chance of being cheaper if you could get it - COBRA's advantage was in cases with preexisting conditions. Since this is in the context of COBRA, the ACA has something called a Qualifying Life Event that includes changes in income, family size and state of residence. With those, there's a good chance you'll qualify for a Special Enrollment Period and be able to purchase coverage (though you might still keep COBRA for a month until the new coverage kicks in). There may also be some limitations on the non-exchange catastrophic plans that will curtail their availability in the future - I haven't paid attention to this, but one of the "Obamacare killed my insurance coverage!" issues was that the ACA mandated certain minimum levels of coverage or service and the plans that were being killed off were ones that didn't meet those minimums. After the outcry I believe there were some deadline extensions to grandfather in existing plans, but those will end at some point.