Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the House health care bill in November and has repeatedly attacked the Senate bill as a “giveaway to the insurance industry,” just held a press conference to announce he would support the final bill.

On Monday, Kucinich flew with President Obama on Air Force One when Obama made a speech in his district. The media will make a lot of noise about this because Kucinich is the first “no” vote to publicly switch to “yes,” but we shouldn’t be surprised that a single-payer advocate would support a bill that’s such a major step toward government-run health care.

As I’ve said all along, the question is not whether, with this one piece of legislation, liberals achieve their dream of a government-run health care system. The important point is that it moves the United States in that direction. The bill puts the infrastructure in place by providing government subsidies to individuals to purchase government-designed health insurance on government-run exchanges. It imposes a raft of new taxes and regulations, and mandates that individuals purchase government-approved insurance policies. Over time, the government can shift more people to the exchanges, tighten its control over insurance policies, impose more cost controls (i.e. rationing), and add a public option – all of which will keep moving us toward a system of total government control.

According to a report by Talking Points Memo, President Obama met with House liberals and “pledged to revisit the public option in the future.” Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, “once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”

So, there’s no shock that every single-payer advocate in Congress who talked tough for over a year will ultimately support the final bill. They can’t resist.