If you’ve followed the stories of insurance cancellations related to Obamacare, you may have heard about Dianne Barrette. She’s the 57-year-old Florida realtor who was paying $54 a month for a Blue Cross insurance plan. The plan won’t be available after December. And while FloridaBlue offered her a new plan, the company told her the premium would be $591 a month. Barrette, who makes $30,000 a year and could not pay for such a plan, was flabbergasted. Jan Crawford of CBS News made her the key source for a story about plan cancellations. An appearance on Fox News followed, as did multiple cameos in press releases from Obamacare critics. For at least a few days, she was the poster child for the Obamacare cancellation story.

But Barrette’s situation defies quick and easy description. It’s true that she can’t keep her current policy—and that most policies available to her for next year have higher premiums. But those plans also offer real coverage, and her current plan does not. Some people might resent government effectively prohibiting her current plan. Barrette doesn’t appear to be one of them. Based on conversations we’ve had over the past few days, she wants more comprehensive insurance and, within reason, she's willing to pay more for it.

I’m not the first person to examine her situation. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post called her shortly after the CBS article appeared. Nancy Metcalf of Consumer Reports examined her case and provided a detailed breakdown of what insurance she has today versus what she could buy for next year. What follows builds on their work—and that of other writers, like Tommy Christopher of Mediaite, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times and Paul Waldman of the American Prospect, who have examined similar stories.

Barrette's story isn't a stand-in for everybody losing existing coverage—a group that represents a tiny proportion of the population, yet still numbers in the millions. Even so, Barrette's tale provides a good window into some of the primary changes taking place as a result of Obamacare. Those changes are way more complicated than the initial media coverage suggested.

The policy Barrette has today is called the Go Blue Plan 91. It is not what most people would consider real insurance. Its coverage of doctor visits and tests, such as MRI scans, consists of paying $50 and then letting Barrette pay the remaining balance. Drug coverage works more or less in the same way, only the plan pays $15 per prescription—which is enough to cover generics, but not many name-brands. And hospitalization? The plan pays nothing at all. As Wemple put it, "it’s a pray-that-you-don’t-really-get-sick 'plan.'" Barrette doesn't really disagree—but this plan, she says, was all she could afford. "Most everyone I talked to said they were paying thousands more to get hospital coverage," she told me, "so I took my chances with what I have now."