Not only that, but companies are only required to provide COBRA for a finite period of time. I want to say that it's like 18 months. Now, hopefully, you'd have a new job in that time, but there are a variety of reasons that you might not, like if you decided to become a homemaker, for example. If you didn't meet your partner's company's criteria for getting onto their insurance plan, you're still screwed after that period of time.