At $50-100/month, they would have to sap you for nearly a 
  decade to make up a single surgery.

The point of insurance is that the risk that you need a lot of attention is diluted by being in a pool with insurance takers that mostly don't need that attention. You pay for your surgery together. Insurance has the interesting property of being an inherently Socialist service that you are purchasing from capitalist companies: Big Brother takes care. The main problem in the US seems to be that people refuse to accept the Socialist nature of the service, which means they feel everything above their own medical expensen is too expensive. That means you just don't understand the service you are purchasing.