Can I do COBRA until we figure out our self-employement health plan?

I have been researching and asking similar questions to those of other self-employed family businesspeople. Still, I am in the data-gathering phase, so I hope that by turning to Reddit, I can get some further insight.

Background: My husband and I have health, dental, and eye insurance through my current employer. We are both 38. We have made the decision (based on multiple factors) that in order to have any work/life balance, I am going to quit my day job and join the family business full-time (he has been self-employed for several years). It's a matter of figuring out insurance, which is our current sticking point regarding when I will give my two-week notice.

Questions (and if it matters, this would be in the state of Michigan):

Can you get COBRA if you quit your job? I think so, but I am afraid to give up the ghost just yet to ask my current employer's HR (it's a bit chaotic company with no employee handbook to check). I've looked online but couldn't find a definite yes regarding this. We have met the deductible for the year on my current employer plan and would love to keep the same plan, possibly for the rest of the year at least (if it's affordable to do so), instead of starting over mid-year. This might be dumb, as I know I need to get insurance eventually, but since we are working for ourselves, is there some law that states we need to 'offer' ourselves insurance ASAP if we are a company of 2 people? (Note: I know COBRA is temporary. It's a max of 18 months, right? However, the sooner I leave my day job, the sooner I have the time during the day to figure out some of these pieces without 'skipping' work to talk to people on the phone.) If you have done something similar, what are the things you found successful (or wish you had done to avoid falling into any pitfalls)? Also, for those of you who are self-employed with a family plan, have you found better rates and plans for the business route, or would it be better to go for the individual family plans?

I may have to make a separate post for those last two, but I figured it was worth a shot to add them in.

submitted by /u/gomaggieo
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