The individual insurance market is not quite so bleak for _everyone_ in the US. Some US states, such as New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, have "community rating" or "guaranteed issue" laws on the books.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_rating

It's complicated, of course. There are varying degrees of community rating, and these laws (particularly without a mandate for everyone to buy insurance) sometimes cause insurers to drop out of the market.