The law indeed forced those companies to bring policies up to highly disputable standards, which for all practical purposes amounts to canceling them and requiring enrollment in much more expensive plans - that is indeed what I'm complaining about.

I think you're missing the hypothetical above. I read it as "the law could have required insurers to bring policies up to snuff without increasing premiums". That presumably would have kept people from getting cancellation notices (and would have been a huge controverstifuck).

In any case, I think you're wrong. I think it's nice that there's a minimum standard for what 'insurance' should actually do. I think mandating certain minimal care coverage is critical in preventing people from being fleeced by super cheap plans that don't cover crap.

I think you're missing the practical reality. Insurers cannot bring policies "up to snuff" without increasing premiums. The changes are significant enough (both benefits and costs) that they are for all practical purposes new & different plans, the old plans are cancelled and new ones must be chosen. That "minimum standard for what insurance should actually do" is now legislated to a very high, and very expensive, level; we're not talking minimum reasonable, we're talking compelling luxury plans.

The minimums hardly make these plans "Luxury Plans".

The (very good) reason to have minimum coverage requirements is to push people from burdening the acute care system (ERs). This is necessary in order to keep overall health costs in check. We cannot, as a society, continue to have people rely on ERs for their only care.

Some of the lavish coverage that is now required[1]: * Blood Pressure Screening * Blood Sugar (Diabetes) Screening * Cholesterol Screening

All of these things are precursors to chronic (expensive) conditions. It is much cheaper to manage these things before you develop heart disease or diabetes. Mandating coverage for these things is simply the smarter allocation of resources than treating the end-stage disease.

It is critical they force churn of healthy young people so they can jack up the prices. that is what the whole Act is predicated on. the more young, health people with cheap plans tha exist, the more the act fails. those plans were not priced to subsize the aca's higher risk pool. that is why the "keep your existing plan" lie is/was so pernicious. the entire thing was a subterfuge, as behind the scence the gov't was <planning> the system to <intentionally churn> people off existing plans. the evidence is quite strong on this...sorry.