When health insurance became a thing, right after WWII, Congress struggled with the question of whether or not, or how to regulate them. They eventually decided not to regulate them. This means that insurance companies were allowed to increase premiums without justification. So therefore premiums went up much faster than inflation.

Fast forward to now and my state Florida has passed legislation to force our state Insurance Commissioner to approve ALL health insurance rate increases. (The job of an insurance commissioner is to challenger rate hikes from insurers and make them justify their increases.) My (unfortunately) red state wants to make Obamacare look bad by allowing insurance companies to raise their rates as much as they want, and of course-- rates are going up 15% this year alone. This is so that Republicans can say that Obamacare has raised insurance rates. My understanding is that other red states have, you should check yours.

Anyway, that's when the junk policies appeared. Insurers not only raised rates, but they also severely cut back coverage. I didn't know they had done this to me-- until I needed it.

Follow the money. It's no wonder that Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Florida-- called Florida Blue-- gave $5M to Republican Rick Scott's campaign for governor. Now the insurers have been rewarded.

If you find yourself in a junk policy, my advice would be to drop it and pray you don't get too sick. That's what I did, because my local insurance companies offered me no other solution. I was otherwise uninsurable and was told specifically that I could have no other plan. I can't blame our president for what the insurance companies have done.