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 or state continuation rights, you are not entitled to take your actual group health coverage 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 only required to make sure that any health benefits they do offer do not discriminate based on health status.
• If you get a new job with health benefits, your coverage may not start right away. Employers can impose waiting periods before your health benefits begin.
• If you have a break in coverage, you may have to satisfy a new pre-existing condition exclusion period when you join a new group health plan or purchase health insurance through HIP-IOWA.
• Even if you have continuous coverage, there may be a pre-existing condition exclusion period for some benefits if you join a 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 one 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 a non-federal public employer in Iowa, such as a state or municipal government, not all of the group health plan protections may apply to you.
• In Iowa, your access to individual health insurance may depend on your health status. Individual health insurers can turn you down if you have a serious health condition. They can also charge you higher premiums because your health, age, gender, occupation and other factors.