First of all, why is it inevitable? The simple answer is because that is what the people on the left, particularly Obama, want. Their real desire is for the federal government to have full control over the money. Need a recent example? How about student loans. The health care bill was crafted to destroy private insurers. How long can they survive having to cover everyone, regardless of their risk? This is much like when lenders were mandated to lend money to people to buy a home who could not afford to pay back their loans. We all now know what happens when that takes place. People love the concept, as long as it is presented to them as something that is free. Imagine builders being mandated to install elevators in all homes with 2 or more stories. Yeah, I'd love to have an elevator in my home . . and it will be free. Free? Someone has to pay for it. Builders won't absorb that cost, they'll pass it along to buyers. So much for free. Same is true with health insurance. Someone has to absorb the cost of insuring millions of additional people, especially high risk people. When insurance companies are regulated to increase premiums by only so much, eventually they will be in a position where they are paying out more than they are taking in. Eventually they will go under.
The bigger issue though to me is that we have the federal government making promises to the American people (coverage for all with pre-existing conditions and no limits in benefits for example), but the only way they can achieve those promises is by mandating a private industry to fulfill those promises; all while conveying to the American public that this will come at no price to them. The larger question is what right does the federal government have to make such impositions on the American people in general, and on private companies specifically. People on the left will respond that this has been done in the past. They will point to federal regulations mandating safety measures or protecting civil rights. And they are right. But with each regulation and with mandate, a small sliver of freedom is taken away from Americans, forcing companies to either quit or move outside the country. Pretty soon, not only do those slivers start to add up, but eventually larger slivers are taken. And pretty soon you have a huge one, in the name of a health care bill.
One more thought: those on the left who embrace abortion do so on the notion of the right to privacy and the right of a woman to have full control of her body, absent of interference from the government. Wasn't their whole argument based on the concept that the government, by banning abortion, should not be able to tell a woman she has to have this baby? Shouldn't health care be a matter of privacy as well? What happens when the government starts making health care policies (mandates) as part of their socialist style health care that requires individuals to take certain medicine or bans certain medicine? Why are the same people who hate government interference when it comes to abortion now welcome government interference when it comes to all other matters of health care? To me it is the same disconnect the 1960 radicals had with their "down with the system" protests, all while embracing heavy handed dictators. Some things I just don't understand.
For Americans who have always wondered what it would be like to live in Europe, pretty soon you'll be able to experience it without leaving your home.
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