Can I buy health insurance outside open enrolment?

Marriage, divorce, a birth or adoption, a permanent move, and losing other coverage all open a window to buy a Marketplace plan outside the annual enrolment period. Most of those windows run sixty days from the event, and a few let you act sixty days before it as well, which is worth knowing when you can see a job ending.

Without an event, the Marketplace will not sell you a major-medical plan until open enrolment. Short-term medical is sometimes available in the gap, but it is medically underwritten, can exclude pre-existing conditions, and does not open a special enrolment period when it ends.

An estimate for planning, not a quote. Medicare and the Marketplace set your real figures.