I remember you talking about this (lurked long before I started posting). But the bottom line here is your employer dropped it because they didn't want to pay for it.
I'm sure the option was there to keep the plan was there not? I remember you saying your employer pitched a fit about "obamacare".
I had employer sponsored healthcare at that time as well. My company did NOT drop coverage. A few years later, they found a cheaper alternative.
I kept all my doctors..as did 95% of Americans.
Not a lot of employers liked providing the benefit, but they virtually had no choice. Single plans were too expensive for most blue collar workers so if a company didn't have a healthcare plan, they had a hard time finding potential employees. I would never accept a job offer from a company with no coverage.
So when Commie Care started, our plan at work went up 35% according to my employer and he could no longer afford it. He wasn't alone. Many small businesses dropped the benefit because Commie Care was there. I know, because I started to look for other work after we lost our plan. No small company had the benefit any longer.
Middle-class workers were screwed because even if you found something satisfactory, you had to pay for it with after-tax money. When it was an employer benefit, you weren't taxed at all.
Lower income workers did better because taxpayers funded most of their plan, and their monthly payments were only double digits and not triple. It's middle-America that had to pay for it.