It might be just my situation. I had private plan before ACA. When exchanges opened I spent half a day filling out forms to see if I can get anything better than my private plan. Because of no income, they did not allow me to even check what price from exchange would be, they just said that we'd get Medicaid. Since we never got any information on how to get it (I am in Texas), I assumed I need to go through whole form filling again. That's where I resigned and decided to stay away from exchanges.

So it looks like just my special circumstances.