I'm self employed and I have had no problems. I own two small businesses. Both provide
ALL of their employees health insurance where the business pays
ALL of the premiums. The policy is a medium high deductible in so far as the insurance company is concerned, but the business makes it low deductible to the employee through an employer reimbursement plan. Effectively $250/deductible and maximum of $500/year out of pocket. The benefits are generous in terms of the things that are covered.
Our rates went up 4% in one of the last two years and down 8% in the other. So they've been essentially stable.
I have been quite surprised to see how reasonable the ACA exchange policies have been compared to our group coverage, although I understand it's not an apples to apples comparison. I checked and if I were not covered through the firm, I would qualify for a policy for a very modest $380/Mo. That's about $550/mo. less that our group coverage, although the exchange policy is substantially less generous in it's coverage and it's choice of physicians.
See this Kaiser Foundation tool to get near exact quotes for what the exchange policies would cost you:
http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
Frankly, the implementation of the ACA seems to be going quite well, all things considered. As for the comments about increases in costs for young healthy individuals, that is by design. That population must subsidize the older, sicker insureds for health insurance to work. That cohort will get their money back when they themselves become older and sicker, as they (at least as a group) will inevitably do.