Actually, this is misleading and the bolded part is incorrect. Insurance companies had to get approval by state regulators to cancel a plan for the entire group of policy holders.
The existing HIPPA law provided for guaranteed acceptance into a comparable plan with no waiting periods or exclusion for pre-existing conditions, so long as you didn't go without insurance for more than 60 days. Unfortunately, the premium was much higher than that of an underwritten plan, but as you wrote about the ACA in post #9, you could get insurance if you could "foot the bill".