Yes, I think that's their MO in general. Make it impossible for private industry to keep its head above water due to byzantine regulations, and if they try to compensate by raising their prices, then demonize for them that. Both avenues -- the regulation-out-of-existence of the failures, and the demonization of the successes -- provide a pretext for nationalization, usually with some rationalization like "we live in a complex, highly technical society where the resources of a single private entity are quite simply no longer enough; only the state can properly meet these demands. We've made an honest effort at doing things the old way, but that only resulted in price gouging and fleecing of the consumer." i.e., it's all in the name of proggggg-ress.