We are not yet in a single-payer system, which means the market remains in the driver's seat. Where it can go and what it might do have been limited compared to what came before, but the government has principally limited the market in places where the market, if left to its own devices, would simply take advantage of those that need it the most. The market's treatment of pre-existing conditions is a known black mark against those that argue that free market forces will fix everything. They won't. Free market sees the uninsured being denied access to emergency rooms and the elderly being discharged when their incipient deaths are no longer profitable, or when a more profitable disease comes along and the space is needed. That is what free market health care looks like. It is not something any democratic majority (or any particular collection of sane people) would want. The health care market needs the government to give it some paved roads to drive on, to extend your driver's seat analogy. Otherwise it'll just be driving through human lives and accumulated wealth with indifference. Also, when a collection of laws creates a health entity (ACO) that is exempt from regulation, that's allowing the market more freedom, not less.
You're going to need to explain the FU bit about cost controllers. It forced an administrative/medical care ratio on insurance companies. That means that insurance companies can't pile on administrative costs forever. It also increased the minimum requirements of insurance so that what "insruance" is isn't $25 a month feel-good, get-sick-and-die policy. Is that your complaint? That insurance companies are now required to offer something that can actually be substantively described as "insurance"?
As I said, this bill did a lot-lot. Most of which isn't something a non-legal or non-health observer would necessarily notice. We don't necessarily need more doctors (just allow nurses to practice within the scope of their training, that's one of several quick fixes) or more hospitals. Just because you cannot see or understand the difference doesn't mean the difference isn't there. Your nonsense about buck-passing might apply to the Medicare changes (a fraction of the PPACA), but not to much else. The President and the Democrats and a couple Republicans actually -did- something. If its a buck passed, then its a buck that no one else has bothered or managed to pass in the history of the US.
And speaking as a healthy white 30-something male, the exact type of person who is now being forced to participate in a collective risk pool my age group has traditionally opted out of: fine. I get it. This is part of being a community, and paying taxes sucks, but this is the least horrible option available that the government was actually able to pass. (And full disclosure: my plan is not subsidized by premium tax credits.)