I think the problem was that an ever-increasing number of people were going without health insurance, either because they couldn't afford it or because the cost-benefit analysis didn't seem to work in their favor. Therefore, the government had to step in and subsidize policies in order to preserve the insurance industry's profits. This also solved the problem of hospitals giving too much uncompensated ER care to the poor. Healthcare systems, like insurance companies, donate a lot of money to "our" politicians.

It's a pity this couldn't have been done in a way that would actually extend regular healthcare to the subsidized policyholders, but since that was a secondary concern, no one seems to have paid much attention to it. It really doesn't help a poor person to give them a free insurance policy with an $8,000 deductible; they still won't be able to afford doctor visits, or they'll have to pay for them out-of-pocket, same as they were doing while uninsured. They'll only benefit if they have a catastrophic expense, but then they most likely wouldn't have been paying for that anyway. (As the old saying goes, "Can't get blood out of a turnip.")