While that system has so far avoided mass layoffs or financial meltdown, it has also slowly sapped the vitality of the economy. As that happens, demands for further bailouts increase while the ability to provide such bailouts diminishes. Yet the political system is still in denial.
Reform is very much stalled.
I doubt very much that the current political gridlock can continue indefinitely because the economic shock absorber system cannot go on indefinitely. Muddling through doesn't work. No one disagrees with bringing the sick back to health. However, trying to prop up the living dead has a real and unavoidable economic cost. Bad debts mean more than paper losses.