Well, "their average annual out-of-pocket spending on medical care and drugs might have been $280 less. The near-elderly and people with low incomes might have saved $589 and $535, respectively. An important improvement would have been the reduced probability of incurring very high out-of-pocket spending. The likelihood of having out-of-pocket expenditures on care exceeding $6,000 would have been reduced for all adults with individual insurance, and the likelihood of having expenditures exceeding $4,000 would have been reduced for many."

Of course, this doesn't address premiums, which almost certainly would have jumped enough to gobble most, if not all, of those out-of-pocket savings. You don't think all that extra coverage comes cheap, do you?

If the individual market is where we're headed, though, things need to get better. Based on another study, Health Affairs reports, "More than half of Americans who had individual insurance in 2010 were enrolled in plans that would not qualify as providing essential coverage under the rules of the exchanges in 2014. These people were enrolled in plans with an actuarial value below 60 percent, which means that the plans covered less than that proportion of the enrollees' health expenses. Many of today's individual health plans are below the 'bronze' level, the lowest level of plan that can be sold through exchanges."

But today's group plans would fare far better in an exchange world, with most boasting an  actuarial benefit in the 80 percent – 89 percent range, qualifying them as 'gold' plans in the exchanges.

If nothing else PPACA will continue to close the gap between the individual and group markets, both in terms or costs and coverage. But at what price?