Out of curiosity, I went and looked up the plans in NJ for a 32 year old person(56k salary). This is someone in a lower risk pool. The bronze plans are in the upper ~280$/month and include a $6000 deductible. There are three plans out of 36 that are ~380 a month that have a $2500 deductible. Everything else is more. This is NJ, one of the better states and definitely not a shitty state. These plans are garbage. Every time someone on HN extols the virtues of Healthcare.gov, I recheck my options and they always come back much worse than what I get working for a private employer (typical S&P 500 corp). I wish people would look up their possible plans on Healthcare.gov before tossing it out as something other than a scam.