I've been on individual insurance for the last ten years, and my experience agrees with what you say. Pre- and post-Obama individual insurance are/were both disasters, but for different reasons.
The biggest problem I experienced before Obamacare was "cherry picking"—where insurance companies make up pre-existing conditions you don't have out of thin air to deny coverage. My doctors (the two times this happened to me) said this was their way of saying "We don't insure individuals."
The biggist problem I have experienced with Obamacare is that every state and federal government agency and every insurance company and other institution that was involved made show-stopping mistakes—bad computer programming, computer system failures, clerical errors, etc. In my opinion, the software industry deserves massive condemnation and ridicule over the failures I have seen, most of which were also experienced by others and were reported on the news.
I am as conservative as most of the folks on FR. That said I only see one practical way out of this health care debacle. Govt. provides $$ to each individual for mandatory catastrophic health care insurance. I would think something like a $15000 deductible. For everything else you are on your own to figure it out.