As I look at it more and more, I have come to a belief that the resent HCR laws are the first step in a plan to go to a single payer, or at-cost public option health care system. " Then why not just do it the first time?" you ask. The answer is a two part-er.

First, the enemy is to strong...right now anyway. Pharma, insurance companies, ect, pumped tens of millions of dollars into the fight against a relatively weak health care bill, care to guess what these entities would have spent on a fight against a serious push for single payer? These corporations wield massive amounts of power and influence, as demonstrated by the recent SCOTUS decision in their favor as regards funding elections. But also, I believe the current HCR laws are intentionally weak, in an effort to defeat these same enemies of universal health care. I'll explain in more detail further down why I believe this is the case.

Second, HCR provided a smoke screen for weakening the banking industry through stripping away the profits from student loans. Over $60 billion dollars in profits will be stripped from the banking industry over the next ten years. By attaching the student loan legislation to HCR, Democrats were able to get in a "preemptive strike" against the opponents of financial and banking reform, and through them, to the opponents of true health care reform.

As for "nationalizing" the student loans themselves? Well, they are FEDERAL Stafford loans are they not? Paid for with tax-payer dollars. Why should private banks be making huge sums of money off our taxes? One could argue that the government is simply changing the administration of and release procedures for those loans. It can't be argued that this change will not save money. It can truly be said that this is a prime democratic example of being fiscally responsible, something lacking in our government during the Bu$hCo years.

If Republicans want to argue that these poor bankers won't be making even more money for processing and administering student loans, be my guess. But I wouldn't recommend that tactic with struggling students when the result of this change is more pell grants, plus lower interest rates on the Stafford loans. Same goes for the tens of thousands of seniors when they start receiving those $250.00 checks in the mail from the Medicare - D corrections in the new HCR law. Good luck telling them to ignore those checks, give them back, and keep getting screwed at the pharmacy.

As far as the new HCR law itself. At first I was NOT happy with it. It's a weak, crappy excuse of a health care reform law. It does not go nearly far enough. Also, I believe that if you are going to institute the republican idea ( and it was ) of mandatory coverage, you should have an at-cost public option plan for people.

And then it dawned on me... Eventually, I believe, we will have Single Payer Universal Health Care. The trap that's been laid has already been sprung, and an elegant trap it is.

The current law does not really regulate what insurance companies will charge for the coverage they are now required by law to offer. These insurance companies have had record profits and I highly doubt they will take the losses out of their profit margins. They will simply pass along the cost to the consumer. They are already figuring out ways to get around the 80-85% part of spending money received on services. The greed they have will impale them on the hook. In the end, private insurance companies will slit their own throats by pricing themselves out of business in the effort to keep the status-quo in profits. At that point, there will be no choice other than either a single payer, Canadian style system, or something similar to the "Americare" idea I saw posted in another diary.

http://www.dailykos.com/...