I assume that was an employer group policy. If so, that sounds like you had a shitty employer or a shitty insurance company (or both). That sucks, and I am sorry that happened to you,
FWIW, I can remember several employee meetings in the period 2005-2010 (before the ACA was enacted) in which my then-employer announced that group health ins. rates were going up a lot but benefits were still going down.
No matter what people think of the ACA, there really were no "good old days" prior to the ACA's 2010 enactment in which employers and employees were treated benevolently by loving, kinder, gentler insurance companies and corporate healthcare providers.
If things were really all hunk-dory in the world of health insurance prior to 2010, the ACA would never have had a chance of passing.
Quick question: How do you know a hospital is trying to screw you?
Answer: When it uses the name of a saint or some other religious reference in its corporate name. No hospital with a name like that (almost all of them) is doing anything other that claiming sainthood without abandoning its true business practices.