Is this a betrayal?

[clear eye]

Just one month after Trumka's speech to the AFL-CIO convention promising to get tough w/ all Dems who don't support a strong public option as part of a healthcare reform bill, I got the following organizing letter from the AFL-CIO's online mobilizers:

Dear ,

Are you sick of insurance companies being able to deny coverage or raise rates for individuals or businesses based on pre-existing medical conditions?

Are you sick of insurance companies being able to come between doctors and patients when it comes to deciding what care patients need?

Are you sick of insurance companies being able to provide incentives to their employees who deny care and reject claims?

We’re sick of it, and today thousands of people across the country are taking to the streets at more than 100 events to demand that insurance companies stop denying our care and stop using our premiums to lobby against health insurance reform. Join the thousands of activists and help take the fight directly to the insurance companies.

We want real health insurance reform, and we’re sick of insurance companies getting in the way.

Click here if a Blue Cross Blue Shield company provides your health insurance.
Click here if UnitedHealthcare provides your health insurance.
Click here if Aetna provides your health insurance.
Click here if Humana provides your health insurance.
Click here if CIGNA provides your health insurance.
Click here if a different company provides your health insurance.
Click here if you don’t have health insurance.
For years, insurance companies have expanded their stranglehold over health care in this country. They make record profits. They make life-and-death decisions. And they’re spending millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbyists to defeat reform—$1.4 million per day.

That’s your money they’re spending to defeat health care reform and the choice of a public health insurance option. Tell them you are sick of it!

Thank you for fighting back against the insurance industry—the real enemy in this debate.

Marc Laitin
AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Coordinator

P.S. Together we can stop the insurance companies and ensure that Congress passes real health insurance reform.

Notice, no mention of a public option, only insurance regulations reform. Also, the AFL-CIO blog had this entry today:

Insurance Company Abuses

by Seth Michaels, Sep 22, 2009

The new AFL-CIO leadership team’s cross-country effort to lay out a progressive vision continues in multiple states today. In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally of hundreds outside the headquarters of CIGNA, a major insurer, demanding health insurance reform that puts people first, not insurance company profits. (AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is in New York, calling for tough new regulations on the financial industry.)

The rally in Philadelphia is part of a National Day of Action on health care, as well as a national push by the AFL-CIO’s newly elected officers to mobilize for an economy that works for everyone.

Holt Baker led a march from City Hall to CIGNA headquarters, saying the time had come to declare independence from the insurance giants who dominate the nation’s health care system.

Said Holt Baker:

We’re sick of insurance companies telling doctors what they can and can’t do. That has to stop. We’re sick of our family members and neighbors getting denied coverage because they once got sick. That has to stop. We’re sick of insurance company policies that reward denying claims. That has to stop. And we’re sick of their using our premium money to work against the health care reform we need.

America is in a big fight over health care. The American people are on one side. Big Insurance is on the other side. Only one of us will win.

Holt Baker introduced several doctors and patients who explained how the broken health care system has affected them. To build an economy that works in the long term, Holt Baker said, we need a health care system that can provide affordable, high-quality care to everyone—not one in which insurance companies call the shots.

Again, only insurance regulation reform with lots of use the word "tough" while dropping the only way of keeping insurers in line and increasing coverage of the currently uninsured--the public option. I feel bait & switched.

Please chime in w/ your takes. I'm especially interested in the opinion of our indefatigable labor DUer, OmahaSteve. Link for the AFL-CIO blog article is here (if you want to submit a comment): http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/09/22/holt-baker-were-sick-of-insurance-company-abuses/

[stray cat]

1. Who is betraying you? It is not everyone - we seem to be short a few votes

[clear eye]

2. I'm talking about the AFL-CIO's dropping the demand for a public option like a hot potato.

Short a few votes for what? Insurance regulation reform? That's not what Trumka was promising to back last month. Even if by some miracle a decent public option passed, I would still feel betrayed by Trumka's about-face on supporting it.