The costs aren't the same. I'm just under paying $50 per pay period for my insurance now; comparable insurance through a private exchange would've been many hundreds of dollars per month when Obamacare first started. Even the Silver plans that were around then cost around $300/month, which was out of my price range at the time (I was working at a startup then and was grossly underpaid, in addition to having no insurance), and every employer-provided insurance I've ever had was equivalent to a Gold or Platinum.

Even if the costs were the same, I live in Texas. PPOs are no longer offered on the private exchanges here. Unless you have employer-provided insurance, you have to have an HMO, which I refuse to do for moral reasons.

(and adding: my previous employer was a tiny company of 12 people, but they had to provide insurance anyway due to being a defense contractor, and I was paying $40 per month for the best insurance I've ever had. The employer I had before that was a startup of the same size and refused to give any insurance or even pay us what we were worth because the owner was stingy, so stingy that he refused to seek VC because he wanted to keep ownership)

Availability of types of plan is a good reason to demand the plan you want.

How much was the employer paying when you were paying $x/pay period? From my experience, small businesses pay a lot more per employee than large businesses and also tend to only have one option for employees.