The office of this Congressman said, "the lack of a sliding income scale" needed to be fixed.
I don't intend to sidetrack into the politics, but I found a chart that shows 33% of the U.S. population lives above the 400% FPL (In 2009, $43,320 for an individual, $88,200 for a family of four by one source).
A "fix" to increase subsidies / reduce payments from this subset of the insured pool will need a corresponding increase in premiums somewhere else in the pool to maintain the same premium / expenses balance for the pool as a whole. This will be a challenge for Congress. I think they will get there, but it will be difficult.
Distribution of the Total Population by Federal Poverty Level (above and below 400% FPL) | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
On the more optimistic side, Sheehs1, I don't understand why are you "assuming the worst" for your current policy, i.e. they will drop you or jack up your premiums. The HHS link in my Under 26 post above reminded me that lots of group and individual policies are "grandfathered" and allowed to remain in place.
Let's assume a retiree is receiving a favorable private policy premium because he is part of a pre-ACA, medically-underwritten pool of policy holders. A group of healthy people, basically, with some moderately less-healthy people in the pool paying higher premiums. (Most unhealthy people were excluded from the pool by pre-existing conditions.)
Let's assume the insurance company has properly priced the premiums across the spectrum of "healthiness" and risk within the pool. I see two subsets financially motivated to jump to exchange policies: those paying the highest rates and those who are paying way more than 9.5% of household income. (Lots of overlap in those two categories, of course).
After those folks jump to exchange policies, the insurer has a smaller, healthier pool, albeit one that is paying a lower average premium-per-insured person. It is not obvious to me that the IC would then be motivated to raise rates on those remaining policy holders. Why run people off from a profitable line?
Could your insurer jack your rates or dump you from a medically-underwritten individual policy? Yes, but absent evidence to the contrary, I don't yet see it as an automatic result of the new availability of subsidized exchange policies.