As important as they are, the federal and state health insurance reforms are limited. Therefore, you also should understand how the laws do not protect you.

• If you change jobs, you usually cannot take your old health benefits with you. Except when you exercise your federal COBRA rights, you are not entitled to take your actual group health plan with you when you leave a job. Your new health plan may not cover all of the benefits or the same doctors that your old plan did.
• If you change jobs, your new employer may not offer you health benefits. If your employer offers health benefits, then the decision on whether to offer your health insurance cannot be based on factors related to your health status.
• If you get a new job with health benefits, your coverage may not start right away. Employers can require waiting periods before your health benefits begin. HMOs can require affiliation periods.
• If you are joining a new group health plan, you may have to satisfy a new pre-existing condition exclusion period if you have a break in coverage of 63 days or more.
• Even if your coverage is continuous, there may be a pre-existing condition exclusion period for some benefits if you join a self-insured group health plan that covers certain benefits your old plan did not. For example, say you move from a group plan that does not cover prescription drugs to a self-insured group health plan that does.   You may have to wait up to one year before your new health plan will pay for drugs prescribed to treat a pre-existing condition.
• If you work for certain non-federal public employers in Arizona, not all of the group health plan protections may apply to you.
• If you are not HIPAA eligible, your access to individual health insurance may dependent on your health status.  Private insurers are not prohibited from turning you down, charging more, or limiting coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
• Even if you are HIPAA eligible, you can be turned down for some individual health insurance. The law permits insurance companies to limit your choices to two plans, which are supposed to be comparable to others they sell in the individual market in Arizona.
• The law does not limit what you can be charged for individual health insurance. You can be charged substantially higher premiums because of your health status, age, gender, and other characteristics.
• If you are a small employer buying a group health plan, you can be charged more, within limits, based on the health status of those in your group. Even within these limits, however, premiums can be significantly higher if someone in your group has a serious health condition