Eyes wide shut on Obamacare.

• Author: Tyson, Eric
• Position: Medicine & Health - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

IF YOU ARE ONE of the millions of Americans who buy his or her own health insurance, the "silver and gold" that dominated your thoughts throughout the holiday season is the silver and gold (and bronze and platinum) designations of the ObamaCare health plans.

Millions who buy individual health insurance have received letters from their providers saying their policies have been canceled because they do not meet the requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Often, the letters suggest a "similar" ACA-compliant plan that is a lot more expensive. Most of the recipients of these letters feel blindsided. In many cases, they worry about whether they can afford hundreds of dollars more a month in premiums or pay a steeper deductible than before.

ObamaCare supporters point out that the ACA-compliant "replacement" plans are pricier because they offer more benefits--but many people chose their (now canceled) plans precisely because they did not want or need, say, maternity coverage or prescription drug coverage. When you pay for your own health insurance, you tend to make educated purchasing decisions aimed at conserving costs and getting value for your money.

Many of these people are self-employed and have unpredictable cash flows, or perhaps they found the individual marketplace offered a better value than a spouse's group plan. They deliberately bought high-deductible plans to keep premiums low. Let us say you are a middle-aged woman with a home-based business. Since you are past childbearing age you chose a catastrophic plan without maternity coverage--and now you are finding out that no longer is an option. It is upsetting.

Why did my policy get canceled? Individual plans that were in effect as of March 23, 2010, were "grandfathered," meaning that you get to keep them even if they do not meet the standards mandated by ObamaCare. However, if the policy has been altered since that date--i.e., if the deductible, co-pay, or benefits changed at all--you cannot keep it. Most policies have been changed since that date, for a variety of reasons, so they are being canceled.

In addition, people who buy individual health insurance tend to change plans often anyway--so some people are losing coverage because they changed insurance policies in, say, 2011. As many as 80% of individual policies will end up being canceled.

My premium has doubled and the deductible has gone up by thousands of dollars--how can this be? It is because of the...