I think I need to explain this a little better, because it seems some people believe that I chose a cut-rate plan and am now whining about the lack of doctor coverage.

But that's not what's happening here.

This situation applies to all individual plans in California, regardless of how much you pay.

The difference in monthly premiums has to do with deductibles, co-insurance, and the existence of certain benefits (such as whether or not maternity is covered).

It does NOT have to do with the number of doctors taking the plan. So even if I had bought a $700/month version of this plan, I would be in the exact same boat.

jsearles is asking what I am expecting from a $255/month plan.

I know exactly what to expect, because I've been buying my own health insurance for 11+ years.

In 2012, I paid $144/month, got about the same benefits (actually slightly better), and nearly all doctors/facilities took it.

In 2013, same thing, except I paid $172/month.

Now in 2014, I'm paying $255/month (about a 50% increase), and barely any doctors take my insurance.

So it's false to say that you can't get decent coverage for $255/month. I got good coverage for $144/month as recently as 21 months ago.

The difference today is obviously coming from the fact that Obamacare forces insurance companies to take patients with preexisting health conditions, whereas prior to 2014 they were shut out. So now with the influx of these new costly members in the individual plans, the overall cost of keeping an individual health care system in place has gone WAY up.

However, the insurance companies were not honest with people about the situation. Consumers were not aware that the payments to doctors were going to be severely reduced, likely resulting in the doctors listed at enrollment time dropping off the plan. Consumers bought these plans believing those doctors to be on the plan, and then found the bad news out when they actually needed care. Furthermore, as you are now only allowed to switch plans for each calendar year, everyone was stuck.

Insurance companies were also at fault for not keeping an accurate and updated list of doctors (thus wreaking havoc upon people trying to find one of the few doctors still taking their insurance), as well as failing to staff properly in order to prevent hours-long hold times.

So why am I also blaming Obamacare?

This new health care law was promoted and pushed through as compassionate legislature to get insurance for millions of Americans who couldn't get it before. Of course, this caused concern for the many more millions of Americans who had existing individual insurance, worried that their plans would degrade or multiply several times in cost. In order to ram this legislation through (as well as get reelected in 2012), Obama insisted, "If you like your plan, you can keep it", assuring Americans wih existing insurance that they would not be negatively affected by the new law. He said it at least 36 times over 4 years, as shown in the video I posted.

Except Obama was either lying or ignorant to the reality of the situation.

Everyone's worst fears about Obamacare have come true. The existing individual plans have turned into garbage. The cost has gone up, but the plans themselves are no longer accepted by most good doctors.

It didn't take a genius to foresee this problem. I wondered this myself. "If all of the sick people are going to flood into the individual plans now, how are they going to be able to pay for them without boosting everyone's rates by several times?", I wondered. My rates went up by 50%, but I still felt that wasn't enough, and the system was likely to go bust. Sure enough, it wasn't enough, so the insurance companies adjusted by just cutting payments to doctors, and the doctors dropped coverage of these plans.

You can't entirely blame the insurance companies. They were forced to pay a fortune to cover the medical needs of lots of sick people. The money had to come from somewhere. Obamacare ignored this huge financial shortfall, and just figured somehow everything would work itself out. Well, it worked itself out, all right!

What if Obama had told the truth?

"If you have an individual plan you like, your premiums will rise 50%, and it will no longer be accepted by most doctors. You will need to change several doctors, as well as accept the fact that most of the doctors taking your plan will be the ones with the least impressive credentials, such as ones who went to foreign medical schools. But these sacrifices will allow millions of Americans without insurance to get insured now, albeit with the same crappy plan you'll be stuck having."

Would there have been any support for this?

Would Obama have been reelected?

Many Republicans criticized Obamacare as unrealistic, hastily-designed, and naive, but they were dismissed as heartless and partisan.

I'm not saying that the situation in 2013 was ideal. There was definitely a need for reform, but this model wasn't it.