Health coverage after losing my job: marketplace or Medicaid? (update)

My family's coverage ended with the layoff and we have a prescription we cannot skip. I would rather hear the honest version than the polite one. The COBRA notice arrived with a very high price. How fast did coverage start?

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 14 months ago, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.