Labor Stands Firm on Public Option

Last week there was some speculation that the White House would try to force labor to back down on the public option and accept the Max Baucus' piece-of-shit Finance Committee health deform.

Not so much.

Stopping by the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed why the AFL-CIO supports health care reform legislation that makes sure Big Insurance doesn’t monopolize the health care field—and why the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee, which does not include a public option, must be improved as it goes through Congress.

"Right now as your last guest [Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive] said, American insurance companies have a stranglehold on the health care industry. In 90 percent of the markets, they’re called highly concentrated, or there’s one or two companies that control them. As a result, profits have gone up 1,000 percent and premiums have gone up 300 percent. The only way to hold them accountable is to create competition and the only way you can create competition is with a robust public option."

Note to White House: It takes more than threats from Rahm Emmanuel to intimidate a guy who fought his way up from the coal mines.