Please Help: Employer failed to maintain employee health insurance. Now What?

My wife's employer offers health insurance coverage where the employee pays 50% and the employer matches. She signed up for this about two years ago and has had two years of coverage and is now pregnant. On our first doctor's visit last week (which is covered under her policy) we learned that her policy was cancelled in January for non-payment. In checking her pay stub, the employer has been deducting her 50% of the health insurance premium every pay as recently as last week, but according to the insurance company, the employer has not payed on the policy. She is not the only employee who has experienced this recently and NONE of the employees were alerted to this issue by either the employer or the insurance company. Otherwise she would have just paid the entire premium to avoid cancellation.

QUESTION: Due to this and other issues, she has contemplated quitting her job, but without an active health insurance policy, does HIPPA provide ANY protection for her at all to be able to maintain the same policy without her current employer, even after its been cancelled by no fault of her own? Remember, she's pregnant now and we simply can't just take out a new policy because coverage for services related to pregnancy would not be covered under the pre-existing condition clause.

We can sue the employer for fraud (they deducted insurance premiums from her sallary but never paid the insurance company), but SHE NEEDS THE INSURANCE NOW.

WHAT DO WE DO???????