The epidural costs $6000. A 10 minute procedure.

I saw my wife before and after an Epidural so I could not dispute it's effectiveness.

But I generally can't see a reason why we need to spend 12 years in school to learn how various needles and rules of thumbs work.

Only the US has such an education burden, and only does the US have such a strong physician cartel to mandate it..

Edit, and even with midwives you will be hitting max out of pocket with 1 night stay.

The training length for physicians is pretty much the same in all countries. In the US to become an anesthesiologist: 4 years undergrad, 4 years medical school, 4 years residency. Total: 12 years. In the UK to become an anesthesiologist: 6 years medical school, 2-3 years of general postgraduate training, 5 years specialty training. Total 13-14 years. Why did you not look this simple fact up before saying it authoritatively on here?

There's more to it than you think, and it's easy to think that it's a simple procedure whenever you don't know what can go wrong, why things can go wrong, and how to fix things if it does go wrong.

Also, the doctor isn't why it's expensive. Doctors don't set the prices, hospitals and health insurance companies do.

Then you have to deal with the circumcision sales pitch.

We never heard even the slightest hint of a sales pitch for circumcision. A single question of whether we were planning to do it or not was all.

In fact, we had an anti-circumcision pitch. They showed a video of the process. It was horrible and makes me queasy just remembering it.

If they were trying to convince you against it, I'm guessing they weren't giving you a video of the average procedure. Kind of like how peta videos aren't exactly representative of how most of the farming industry operates.

I watched the one on my son, and while it wasn't nothing, it was a tiny amount of skin and it was healed up very nicely before even his umbilical cord had fully dried and fell off.

I should have been more clear in my comment. I don't think they were trying to convince people against it, just that it had that effect on me personally.