The corporate chain Whole Foods, many a yogis’ grocery store of choice (except for those yogis who prefer to support local, independently-owned businesses, of course), has come under harsh criticism and even organized boycotting since its CEO and frontman John Mackey published a pointed op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
In his commentary, Mackey expressed his wholehearted disagreement with the health care reform plan which is being proposed by Democrats. In boiled-down terms, he is ardently against universal health care and thinks we should be moving toward “less government control and more individual empowerment” when it comes to the American health care system. He even argues against the belief that all people have an intrinsic right to health care, instead claiming that:
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.
Wow! Whole Foods customers tend to be health-conscious, yoga-practicing, progressive-leaning types who are certainly supporters of universal health care. With this WSJ piece, Whole Foods’ CEO just opened up the floodgates to controversy and criticism from a huge swath of his most frequent shoppers.
The backlash has so far ranged from an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times to coordinated boycotts and a new anti-Whole Foods Facebook page. Whole Foods has also reportedly set up a special hotline to field phone calls from angry customers as well an online forum dedicated to this issue on its website.
What will become of this whole debacle? Will Whole Foods see any significant drop in dollars from boycotts, and will John Mackey honestly re-evaluate his rather conservative views on health care? Let’s stay tuned to find out!
P.S. Should it really be that much of a surprise that the CEO of a major, publicly-traded corporation which grossed nearly $8 billion dollars last year would turn out to be… conservative? Just wonderin’.
Here are pertinent links to explore to find out more about this Whole Foods controversy:
Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Whole Foods CEO Jack Mackey
Los Angeles Times op-ed piece in response
Whole Foods Boycott Facebook page
Whole Foods website health care reform forum
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Quite honestly, I am not sure what the broohaa is all about. Let’s be honest do we really think the goverment getting involved is going to make things less complicated or costly! Personally, I don’t want the goverment, the insurance companies or anyone else making my health care decisions. How about we go back to my parents day, they didn’t have health insurance back then. They paid as they needed it and paid the doctor his fee and sometimes my parents and the doctor would work something out if my parents were short on cash. That certainly doesn’t happen anymore. Quite honestly, the goverment has screwed up everything it touches (i.e. Medicare & Social Security). So I am not sure why everyone thinks the goverment getting involved is going to make things better. I think the whole system needs to be tossed and it should me something that each individual and their doctor decide. Not the goverment, an insurance company or anybody else!
You make some good points. Universal health care would be nice – but…
1. We are in a recession – hello – perhaps it would be better to talk about this in a few years
2. I wish I could count on the gov to run stuff fairly and honestly and efficiently – but take a look at other large gov run social programs – not a good track reacord.
3. It all sounds so good – but down thru history – when other countries have tried it – it seems to never work – despite all of the good efforts.
It doesn’t seem to fair to demonize the CEO of Whole Foods – whether we agree or not – he has a right to his opinion. Part of what makes us a great country is that we can all sound off – debate it – and the truth usually rises to the top. If we keep beating up on folks that we disagree with – we’ll never get that debate and ultimately to the truth. I have thought I was right lots – had a debate – then realized I wasn’t and changed my mind. This is healthy stuff – let’s vigorously and sincerely discuss it and not shoot the messanger.
I like the imagery of the olden days when people didn’t have health insurance, it’s very quaint. In fact, you can literally still do this if you can afford it! You can pay for individual doctor visits and buy medicines when you’re sick (I’ve done this recently when I transferred between jobs). It all works out okay unless you fall really sick or require hospital care, then things can get tricky (or downright impossible).
I don’t know why everything costs so much in healthcare these days…but it does. Part of it’s the fact that sick people are willing to pay alot of money to get better. Part of it’s that doctors have to spend increasing amounts of time and incur huge amounts of debt to become doctors and so need & demand higher salaries. Part of it’s because technology is producing new, more innovative and expensive machinery that may (or may not) be providing better diagnosis and treatment. A big part of it’s because corporate America has an insatiable need for profit. Part of it’s that the government hasn’t been proactive in improving the entire system.
(of course there are a large number of other parts that could be included, but I don’t want to turn this into a novella).
Government involvement in providing health care probably won’t reduce the cost of healthcare for most of us, but it doesn’t need to. What it CAN do is provide coverage to those Americans who are in NEED and cannot afford to live without health insurance, something that is not happening right now.
It’s true that government and politicians have funny ways of trying to make things work but it seems the biggest problem with Medicare is that there are too many people who qualify and not enough funding! If the Medicare program went away the problems wouldn’t disappear. As for Social Security, the governments biggest error was in not spending more money telling the population to reproduce more since the smaller population of young people aren’t going to be able to cover Social Security in the future (though I’m okay with this…money problems have a way of being worked out, saving our planet’s resources isn’t quite as simple).
Let’s end with some more nice imagery. You meet with your doctor and she says, “Oh, and that twenty thousand dollar bill from the C-section we had to do during delivery and the extra two days you spent in the hospital…well, we’ll just sit over a cup of coffee and discuss how you’ll pay me back.” If you know of a way to make this possible let me know. Better yet, let your congresswoman know.
I am in complete agreement with the prior posts! Very well said.
It is a false economy to believe that putting off treatment saves money or resources, either by the individual, the health care system as a whole or by the American taxpayer.
It is also an illusion that there is no rationing now. The choice is between having the decision made by a faceless, nameless bureaucrat in a gray, government building or a faceless, nameless bureaucrat in a multimillion-dollar glass office whose annual bonus is calculated on the number of treatments he can deny.
A friend of mine was “covered” several years ago. She was an employed college student but the school’s insurer kept finding reasons not to cover the MRI ordered by her doctors. Predictably, she could not immediately access the cash to prepay and battle for reimbursement. Just a few days before the appointment she finally managed to finagle the cash for, she suffered a catastrophic event that would have been easily revealed by the test. The result:
Insurer saves $800.
Local hospital and doctors “forgive” tens of thousands in emergency treatment for an indigent patient.
Government pays hundreds of thousands in medical care. Permanent disability payments for someone who could easily live another 50 years could go into the millions.
Patient owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. She cannot continue her education and contribute in the intellectual ways in which she is still capable. Nor can she do the physical job she had before injury.
Who wins?
Namaste.