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 group health coverage 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 include the same doctors that your old health 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 can impose 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 non-HMO, fully insured large group plan or a self-insured group plan.
• Even if your coverage is continuous, there may be a pre-existing condition exclusion period for some benefits if you join a fully insured large group health plan or a self-insured group health plan that covers benefits your old group 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 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 Maryland, not all of the group health plan protections may apply to you.
• Individual health insurers in Maryland are free to turn you down because of your health status and other factors. Even if you are HIPAA eligible, you can be turned down for individual health insurance. Your only option for guaranteed coverage is from the Maryland Health Insurance Plan (MHIP).
• In most cases 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.
• Except when you are joining an HMO, all individual health insurers in Maryland can impose elimination riders and pre-existing condition exclusion periods, and do not have to give you credit for prior coverage.