I am located in California. I understand that an employee has the right to change plans etc during the standard open enrollment period same as any other employee. What I need to figure out is if at the time of layoff, if the layoff is considered a qualifying event and the employee would be able to change plans at that time?

Specifically, we are currently in open enrollment and an employee is considering a higher cost health insurance plan. Understandably with what's going at our company, the employee is concerned about Cobra costs if there is a layoff. Would be interested in going with the higher cost plan now, but if a layoff happened, would want to switch over to an HMO.

Does anybody know how that would work? Or is it not a Cobra thing but an insurance plan thing and I need to read the policy? 

 Help for me - a non-HR "HR" person - is greatly appreciated.  

First of all, since the employee is laid off, they are eligible for the 35/65% subsidy because a layoff is considered involuntary so you might want to keep that in mind when presenting the eligible employee with their potential premium costs.

And yes, they can select a cheaper plan during their COBRA election period.