COBRA costs more than my rent, what did you do? after 5 years as an operations analyst

The COBRA quote for my family is $1050 a month and I do not know how to afford it. I would rather hear the honest version than the polite one. I saw that marketplace plans might cost less. Is the decision time really that tight?

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 3 months ago, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.