It's easy to misread tptacek's comment, I'm pretty sure he's saying "get COBRA as needed to cover a gap, but don't stay on COBRA instead of your new employer's policy."
Staying on COBRA would likely suck, even if your new employer kicked in something to cover it. COBRA can be remarkably expensive, and anything extra the new company paid you would also be taxable income in ways that employer subsidized plans wouldn't along with being awkward if you later signed up ("Lump, we're cutting your pay since you're getting onto our insurance now.").
I'll note that once the ACA plans became available, coverage for my wife and I (on a pretty good Gold plan with no subsidy) was somewhere around 60% of the cost of COBRA for the two of us from her previous job - and the ACA plan wasn't an HMO or anything like that, it was a standard PPO with a decent network.
Delaying a change to the new employer's plan would likely not fly - much like the exchanges, you have two times you're eligible to sign up: during the open enrollment period, and after qualifying events such as a change of employment or marriage. If you bypass the new employer's plan, you're stuck until (most likely) January, 2016 after an open enrollment period in November/December.
Staying on COBRA would likely suck, even if your new employer kicked in something to cover it. COBRA can be remarkably expensive, and anything extra the new company paid you would also be taxable income in ways that employer subsidized plans wouldn't along with being awkward if you later signed up ("Lump, we're cutting your pay since you're getting onto our insurance now.").
I'll note that once the ACA plans became available, coverage for my wife and I (on a pretty good Gold plan with no subsidy) was somewhere around 60% of the cost of COBRA for the two of us from her previous job - and the ACA plan wasn't an HMO or anything like that, it was a standard PPO with a decent network.
Delaying a change to the new employer's plan would likely not fly - much like the exchanges, you have two times you're eligible to sign up: during the open enrollment period, and after qualifying events such as a change of employment or marriage. If you bypass the new employer's plan, you're stuck until (most likely) January, 2016 after an open enrollment period in November/December.