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, 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.
• Employers are not required to provide health benefits for their employees, so if you change jobs, you may find that your new employer does not offer you health coverage. Employers are required only to make sure that their decision is based on factors unrelated to your health status.
• If you get a new job with health benefits, your coverage may not start right away. Employers and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) can require waiting periods before your health benefits begin.
• If you have a break in coverage of 63 days or more, you may have to satisfy a new pre-existing condition exclusion period when you join a new health plan.
• Even if your coverage is continuous, there may be a pre-existing condition exclusion period for some benefits if you join a group 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 one that does. You may have to wait up to one year before your group health plan will pay for drugs prescribed to treat a pre-existing condition.
• If you work for a non federal government employer in Delaware, not all of the group health plan protections may apply to you.
• In Delaware, your access to individual health insurance may depend on your health status. Unless you are HIPAA eligible, private insurers in Delaware may turn you down, charging more, or limit your coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
• Even if you are HIPAA eligible, you can be turned down for some individual health insurance policies. The law permits insurance companies to limit your choices to two policies, which are supposed to be comparable to others they sell in the individual market in Delaware.
• If you move away from Delaware, you may not be able to buy individual health insurance in another state unless you are HIPAA eligible.
• If you are a small employer, you might be charged more for health insurance if someone in your group is sick. While there are limits on what you can be charged based on health status, generally premiums can be significantly higher if someone in your group has a serious health condition. Also, the insurance carrier can turn you down if your small business does not meet the participation or contribution requirements.