Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure about Germany, but in Denmark it's just a service of the state. Doctors' salary, and hospitals' equipment needs, are assessed and negotiated the same way as with other sectors of the public-safety apparatus, such as the police department, fire department, and military. You'd like to keep your hospitals well-stocked, your fire engines maintained and modern, your air force state-of-the-art, etc., but witho…
The USA does not have a culture against prescription drugs. On the contrary, many patients are not satisfied unless the doctor gives them some pills. Antibiotics are often demanded even for viral infections, which probably lead directly to MRSA and other drug-resistant bacteria.
That's true; I think there are definitely cultural factors that make such a system harder to implement in the US. An even bigger one is probably differing attitudes towards end-of-life "heroic measures". I had in mind more a culture among doctors, though: Danish doctors will simply not give you antibiotics no matter how much you beg, if they consider it unnecessary. That's also a norm among American doctors, increasingly emphasized in med school and by professional organizations, but it doesn't seem as strongly followed in practice. That may also be related to the American quasi-private system, which allows "doctor-shopping": if the first says no, you can always find another one who'll write the prescription (and some doctors even make a business out of a word-of-mouth reputation for being lax with prescriptions).