If you don't earn a lot, you will be paying the same or less for better coverage. If you earn a good living and you're trying to get by cheap, well too bad. Those plans are bullshit anyway. Most of them don't even really cover catastrophic stuff, it's basically there so you pay a co-pay at your doc a few times and the rest you actually have to pay if you need surgery or something. They're sneaky and a waste of money.
Look, I agree with you that the ACA doesn't do enough to stem cost curves. It does just a little, which is better than nothing, but not close to what we need.
I'm not a fan of the ACA but this system can't be worse than what we already have, at least not when competent people try to make it succeed. It will suck in states where they intentionally f**k you over.