"but they won't even talk to me as an individual."
You can get health insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield
check it out
http://www.bluecross.com
You might want to revise this to "You can TRY to get health insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield".
If you're over 40 and have pre-existing health conditions, good luck. Your only option will be to go with their must insure policy, at 2 to 3 times the standard rate. And that only applies if you've got COBRA coverage from a former employer.
Well, maybe I will. You're the second person to suggest them to me.
I just have a prejudice against them. Back in the early 70's when I was 22 or so, I got into a multiple car crash on the freeway near San Jose. It was not my fault, but fault doesn't really matter at that point.
It wound up with a ambulance ride to the hospital (siren and all) with some punk who had lost a finger and was screaming about it, many stitches, and an attempt to "queer" me by a gay orderly who was supposed to be taking me to X-Ray.
I had BC/BS at the time.
The bill for the whole thing came to several thousand dollars. The ambulance ride alone was over $500. Back then, that was real money.
I don't think I ever collected one cent from BC/BS. They found a reason to deduct or exclude everything I submitted.
But times are a little different now. I'm not as submissive as I was when I was 22. Not by a long shot.
I will say the the California Highway Patrol officer who stayed by my side with his hand on my chest telling me that I would me okay while blood was gushing out of my eyebrows and I was thinking that I was going to die -- he forever made an impression on me.