> Others in the thread have mentioned they have gotten nearly identical plans to their old employer plans.
One person said this, without mentioning either their state or any details of their previous plan.
> a "blue northeast state" that, according to you, has inadequate options.
I did not say that every "blue, northeast state" has "inadequate options". I said that many states have terrible options, and that, contrary to the stereotype of ACA issues being limited to poorer red states that refused to expand Medicare, this set includes wealthier blue states.
> Do you have any evidence that the plans aren't sufficient?
You stated that "public exchanges are guaranteed to cover their existing condition", an assertion of universality. This is completely false, for reasons that I have explained. The federal statues guaranteeing coverage for individual conditions are incredibly narrow and exclude both the most expensive conditions for patients, as well as almost all expenses for chronic conditions.
Furthermore, it's very easy to disprove this assertion of universality, because it's incredibly easy to find counterexamples - the ACA has been around for a decade, and there are tons of forum posts all over the past ten years from people struggling to find non-COBRA coverage that continues to match their needs after losing a job. A marketplace plan cannot deny you an insurance plan for a preexisting condition, but that doesn't mean that there exists a marketplace plan that will cover it.
The fact that you happen to know people who are satisfied with their coverage for themselves is neither here nor there, because it does not contradict the main point: the ACA is no guarantee that people losing their jobs will actually have any non-COBRA options to address their health needs (and given that Microsoft has pretty comprehensive insurance and employs people in nearly every state, it's all but certain that the marketplace options will be appreciably worse for many of those people than the status quo).