Thanks for the link Bill I'm going through it.     No 'system' is going to go on 'auto pilot' and work smoothly for decades.  With social changes and technological changes, health care problems and advances are moving faster that ever.

This concerns me too.  When a pragmatic decision to stay afloat financially has to be made, I have little confidence that a political solution will happen in a timely matter.   Politicians are not health experts,   Health experts tend not to be accountants.   Politicians do what gets them elected, not always the best thing for the nation.

For your link, I think the lesson might be that it's very hard to compare US spending on health care with a more socialized system. if  Either system is not financially balanced.     

I don't think we have any choice but to provide health care as a right, but we'll have to have multiple layers of care.   As an example, generics should be required (when available) to those accepting fed funding.