Due to a recent employment decision, entirely voluntary, I'm in the market for private family health insurance. Here's what I've learned so far: 1. Thanks to ACA, companies can no longer enact rescissions for any reason. If you as a buyer of insurance commit fraud, you're fried and they can and will drop you. If in good faith you forgot to mention you had a sore toe three years ago but now you have a cancerous skin lesion (I don't), the insurance company can't retroactively drop you. They used to do this. Go do some research, it's easy to find. 2. If you have at any point in the past several years taken more than two prescription drugs, you're too risky to cover with Cigna. Good luck with another company. 3. If you want a straight answer about your rights regarding COBRA, HIPAA, private health insurance, be prepared to get a range of conflicting answers, but the best source I've found so far is the federal governments literature put out since ACA was enacted. Once again, a heartfelt thanks for that. 4. Besides being utterly confused, the biggest irritation regarding this entire process is this Mitt Romney quote that kept going through my head: “Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered,’” Romney replied. Why does that bother me? Because even though no one in my family has been without health insurance (my kids ever, my wife and I since we became professionals 15 years ago), we've been turned down for private health insurance. We've never had a gap in coverage. Not one of us has a major illness. If a family of healthy, financially viable people who've never had a gap in health insurance and still don't can't get insurance, it seems Mr. Romney's argument is a bit thin and tone deaf.