I'm 47 and my wife is 56. I am diabetic, and she has lupus. She requires monthly injections that run $6000/month. She lost her job after having been diagnosed and for a couple of years was ininsurable. I understand many people's displeasure with the ACA, but it literally saved her life. We qualify for a subsidy (barely) and are currently paying $500/month for the two of us. I selfishly am very happy that the ACA is still the law.
Lots of people like you out there. Higher income people don't get help and mostly have weaker plans. Also - the lowest income people got left out in the cold on ObamaCare. The plan was for the States to expand Medicaid to cover those folks - as the poster called "indigent males". Most states however, didn't expand Medicaid so those people got no help and no insurance.
I'm a far right winger. And I've been an agent for 30 years.
The "idea" of insurance in concept - is that EVERYone puts money in the pot, so that when YOU have a claim, there's money there to pay it. Smart people called actuaries figure out how much we pay in. Those are called premiums.
The problem is that not EVERYone is paying in. And we've become so damn entitled that EVERYone isn't going to pay in, unless we're made to. Because we now know that the hospital isn't going to turn people away if they don't have money or insurance.
Insurance doesn't work if people aren't paying a share. It also does not work when something called "adverse selection" happens. That's basically when the unhealthy or sick people buy insurance, but the healthy people don't.
So how can this be fixed???
I say that it can't - as long as people are given almost as a full access to health care at the hospital even without insurance coverage. And it also can't be fixed when people don't put in money or when adverse selection happens.
Soooooo - as much as my right wing soul hurts to ask this - would universal coverage for everyone be the only real solution? Some kind of basic plan and people who want better coverage could buy a supplemental policy. This way if rates are based on 100% of the population participating, premiums should drop dramatically, and should be somewhat stable.
The birds nest this would open would be the total government control over health care, which of course is one of the main pillars of communism. Then the limited coverage for terminally ill people, death panels, minimalizing research on new drugs & cures, investment in becoming great medical professionals, etc. After all - capitalism drives most of these things and when the government is in charge... well they usually don't do nearly as well as the private sector.
Bottom line - it's a broken mess.