No, that’s basically how it’s always been. The ultimate goal is of course to get to that single payer system (they’ve said so for years), and the invidiual mandate is a good step in that direction. Basically you force everyone to buy, then quality goes down, and prices go up, and more and more people end up being forced onto the government program, while the government and all the proponents of socialism get to point to the insurance companies and say “look! They’re cutting coverage and raising prices!” And now they have more ammunition to say government should take over the whole thing.
Plus as expounded here, establishing precedent to be able to force Americans to buy something would be an enormous step toward totalitarian rule, so of course they are in favor of that.