It's not really initial conditions, the US government is already spending a lot on medicaid, medicare and social security, I believe almost 50% of its federal budget. [0]

As an EU citizen I definitely can't see the USA becoming more like European countries when it's already spending that much.

It's quite likely that the current powers are just leeching the citizens (tax payers), so until there's some reform in health care, the budget is going to be drained as much as possible.

I saw it in my EU country (public hospitals writing very specific requirements for a business so that only 1 business fulfills them, families rotating care of a disabled person through all individuals so that all end up getting the pension - the pension is priviliged if work requires you to care for people with disabilities, and a bunch of different EU fund extraction schemes, from public universities to individuals). People learn the tricks of the system and then exploit it, probably more aggressively in the USA.

Pension systems in EU countries are collapsing a bit. Just look at % of budget for pensions in Austria, Germany, Croatia etc. Every year they rob the younger generations by raising the pensions for the elderly. I think Croatia recently basically cut pensions by 25% for all people that have about 15 years more of work. Austria is constantly raising the pensions because the life standard increase is driving the elderly to poverty.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#M...