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When you’re losing health coverage

For anyone in the United States whose health coverage has ended or is about to: a job’s plan, Medicaid or CHIP, a parent’s plan at 26, a spouse’s plan after a divorce or a death, a plan you fell behind on, or coverage that changes at 65. Most of the ways back in have a deadline. This page gives the deadlines as the federal sites give them, and the words for the call. Take only what you need today.

This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No lawyer, insurance professional, Marketplace assister or benefits worker has reviewed it. The facts come from pages read on October 6, 2026. Eighteen are pages of HealthCare.gov, the federal Health Insurance Marketplace: Special Enrollment Periods; sending documents to confirm one; COBRA coverage and coverage options when you’re unemployed; premium payments and grace periods; staying on a parent’s plan and turning 26; Medicaid and CHIP coverage, changing between them and the Marketplace, and getting Marketplace coverage after losing them; changing from the Marketplace to Medicare; which changes to report; appealing a Marketplace decision and appealing an insurance company’s decision; the dates and deadlines; community health centers; finding local help; and its contact page. The rest: the U.S. Department of Labor’s two pages on COBRA continuation coverage; Medicare.gov’s page on when Medicare coverage starts; and Medicaid.gov’s page on where to get help. The page says whose words it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own suggestion. What we did not read: any state’s Medicaid rules, renewal forms or appeal deadlines; any state-run Marketplace (HealthCare.gov is the federal one, and some states use their own site and their own dates); the laws themselves; most of the Department of Labor’s 23 questions and answers on COBRA, which open one at a time (we read its summary page and the footnotes); TRICARE, VA care, the Indian Health Service and student health plans; and anything about what a plan costs. The page gives no prices and no income limits, because they change every year and differ by state and household. Dates here are the ones on the sites the day we read them. We did not call any number. Nothing on this page is stored on your device or sent anywhere, and the page loads no analytics (privacy). Your browser will still remember that you visited, as it does for any page. It was checked by programs, not yet used by people. Scarlet Beast is not an insurance agency, a broker or a government agency, and takes no money from anyone named here. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].