I pulled this from my own health insurance website:

As of January 1, 2013, the Empire Plan Medical/Surgical Program became self-insured by the NYS Department of Civil Service (DCS), with certain claim processing and other administrative services provided by UnitedHealthcare under an administrative services contract arrangement between DCS and UnitedHealthcare. This arrangement eliminates the Plan's exposure to certain taxes/fees charged under the Affordable Care Act in 2014 as well as State premium tax liabilities in 2013. Savings achieved by this funding arrangement are expected to result in a premium "surplus" at the end of 2013.

So thanks to changes made by my insurance carrier to deal with the new standards & requirements of the ACA, there should be a surplus at the end of the year... and hopefully reduced premium costs for 2014.

So here is an example of the ACA achieving its goal of making health insurance more streamlined and less wasteful of our money.