About 1,000 union members and supporters of the Democrats' health plan rallied in front of the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. Tuesday to protest insurance companies and pressure Congress to pass a bill .

Inside, America's Health Insurance Plans   held a meeting for its members, including CEOs of insurance providers, to discuss policy solutions to the nation's health care problems.

Health Care for America Now , which organized the protest, had planned to issue mock warrants and try to arrest the CEOs . Their plans were expectedly thwarted when police officers blocked the entrance to the hotel.

Labor leaders carefully orchestrated the event. SEIU workers lined the streets with yellow jackets on to manage the crowd as they marched from nearby Dupont Circle to the hotel.

They stood close to the police and directed demonstrators away when officers on horses objected to their proximity to the Ritz. They addressed the crowd from a stage wheeled in on a flatbed truck, and they led the staged citizens arrest.

Participants stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel awaiting cues and chanting the same slogans that could be heard at labor health care rallies last fall: "What do we want? Health care! When do we want it? Now!"

Cheryl Moon, a labor leader from North Carolina, attended previous rallies through Service Employees International Union.

She got on a bus at 4:30 a.m. to attend Tuesday's rally. Dozens others who came from Rhode Island and West Virginia also arrived on buses chartered by their unions.

"It's worth it to see this many people," Moon said of her early morning trip. "This is a good size compared to the rally in July. It shows that the public still wants this [health care overhaul] to happen."

The crowd held a variety of signs, many of them pre-printed. Some held signs from CREDO Mobile , a private company that has been involved in the political fight.

“Another ___ for the public option,” the signs read, and activists filled the blank with a variety of responses: healthy person, uninsured, doctor’s father, registered nurse, commie, job loser, unemployed man, nursing student.