This article does a good job. I've been around Europe, Asia, and the States so I'll chime in with my experiences at the hospitals around those places.

Let's start with Asia, South Korea. So my wife split open her head, and blood was everywhere. We call the ambulance, and it takes about 30 minutes to get there. It's the middle of the night, no traffic. Once at the hospital, they put her on a dirty gurny, and the doctor takes a razor blade off a table and shaves the area around the split. He then grabs a medical stable gun, and staples the wound. Throughs some iodine on it, and calls it a day. He did not clean the gun, did not clean the gurney, did not clean the razor, did not clean anything. Not even hands. There was blood dripping on the floor. Assistants (Not even nurses, that's also how they get cheap) flip the pillow, next person up goes and lies down. Fucking disgusting, the whole thing.

In Europe, the U.K. Nothing was clean as well, I saw a worker take a mop from the floor, and clean a table top with it. The stuff they get away with would get you in jail in the U.S.

In the U.S. everything is clean, everything is new. Oh, you just laid down on that exam chair for a second? Better get a new pillow, and take the sheet to the wash room. Let me change gloves after every place I touch. This also adds to cost though.

To be fair, if you read the article, drug companies, insurance administration costs, and specialist visits also drive up the price. That's where we need to work on cutting the costs, but the Affordable Care Act pretty much protects them from anything now. They're just raking in the tax dollars.