Is Healthcare in the United States Too Big to Fail?

By 2016, projected spending on healthcare in the United States is set to rise from 15 to 20% of GDP, or $4.3 trillion - to paraphrase Everitt Dirksen, 'a trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. Universal coverage is really only a hidden part of the much greater problem of escalating costs and the necessity for the government to reduce its exposure to them will inevitably force corrective reforms. In this way, reality eventually provides a 'burning platform' for change and supplants dogma, but a crisis is required because a problem is not enough.