Was your policy in wherever you come from a group or individual policy? Group policies are much less expensive than individual policies as the average age of the group is certainly lower than your age. Was it age rated only or also grandfathered and rated based on your pre-existing conditions or more importantly, lack of pre-existing conditions. The rate of rise of insurance premiums has slowed dramatically year over year in the last few years.
Average Monthly Premiums Per Person in the Individual Market | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
Here you can see the average monthly premium by state in 2013 from Kaiser Family Foundation. No data there for 2014 or 2015. But Florida and that includes the higher priced areas of Dade County, has an average rate a couple dollars BELOW the national average. This is for all ages not for those nearing medicare and includes policies that would no longer qualify as adequate.
https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/res...th-price-index
Here you can see the average quarterly premium for 2015 for individual coverage, again all ages and smoking status lumped together.
As you indicate you are from New York State, you will see that for 2015 the data is divided into three types of coverage, low, average and high or bronze, silver, gold/Platinum plan
Low NY 153 FL 70 OH 84 TX 78
Ave NY 365 FL 313 OH 301 TX 280
High NY 736 FL 1094 OH 1061 TX 1111
These are all without any subsidy and reflect the self pay cost of coverage. As you can see the only plan higher here is the gold/platinum plan compared to NY and that Florida rates are right in line with most other states.