Essentially you are saying since Cobra is retroactive you can wait to accept it and wait to get a ACA policy, then choose which one based on how your heath was during the waiting period. It is like buying car insurance after you have an accident but getting covered for the accident.
not what I was trying to say.. but I could see how my example could be seen that way. There are others that were using that more directly. cobra does have 60 days to decide if you want to buy it... and is retroactive to the day you lost your insurance.
My attempt was to show what I think is correct, but can't find a definitive example or documentation describing the situation. That is if you can take cobra and still buy an ACA plan when in a special enrollment period.
It is clear that voluntarily cancelling cobra does not create a special enrollment period. It is also clear that you can cancel cobra and purchase ACA insurance during open enrollment.
To me it would make sense that you could still buy ACA insurance during a special enrollment period, but use cobra to bridge between one insurance ending and the other starting provided you complete the ACA purchase in accordance with the special enrollment guidelines.