Cite as: 524 U. S. 74 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
the event and the election. One wonders why Congress would have wanted to create such a strange scheme. Thus, assuming that our reading of § 1162(2)(D)(i) produces an anomaly, so does Moore's.
But this is not all, for the anomalous consequences of Moore's position are not exhausted without a look at the interpretative morass to which it has led in practice. To support its thesis that Congress meant individuals situated like James Geissal to be ineligible for COBRA benefits, Moore points to a statement in the House Reports on the original COBRA bill, that "[t]he Committee [on Ways and Means] is concerned with reports of the growing number of Americans without any health insurance coverage and the decreasing willingness of our Nation's hospitals to provide care to those who cannot afford to pay." H. R. Rep. No. 99-241, pt. 1, p. 44 (1985); see 114 F. 3d, at 1463 (quoting House Report). Of course, if this concern (expressed in one House Committee Report) were thought to be a legitimate limit on the meaning of the statute as enacted, there would be no COBRA coverage for any beneficiary who had "any health insurance" on the date of election, or obtained "any" thereafter. But neither Moore nor any court rejecting the plain reading has gone quite so far. Instead, that draconian alternative has been averted by a nontextual compromise.
The compromise apparently alludes to the proviso that § 1162(2)(D)(i) applies so as to authorize termination of COBRA coverage only if the coverage provided by the other group health plan "does not contain any exclusion or limitation with respect to any preexisting condition of such beneficiary." Moore urges us to hold, as some Courts of Appeals have done, that although Congress generally intended to deny COBRA coverage to individuals with other group insurance on the election date, there will still be COBRA eligibility in such cases if there is a "significant gap" between the coverage offered by the employer's plan and that offered by
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