August 22, 2009
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey
talks Sense on Health Care
[SOURCE]:
John Mackey
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Mark Gimein
Has Whole Foods' CEO Gone Completely Bananas?
Rosie Mestel
The Whole Foods boycott -- much frothing on the Web
Who would you trust to plan a humane, yet viable, health care system?
A) A filthy rich liberal, like Nancy Pelosi, who hires illegal aliens, instead of poor American citizens in need of health care, to work her California vineyards?
Or
B) A man who walks the walk?
John Mackey walks the Walk
The Chairman of Whole Foods is John Mackey, a man who obsesses about healthy food and healthy living.
A man who obsesses about giving his workers a great health plan. -- A medical plan so good that even his Canadian employees prefer it to what their government health care gives them.
But to a liberal, such a man is to be spat upon!
A liberal -- Commpasionate and Pragmatic
A conservative -- Nazi and Utopian
The liberals who are the very people who frequent Whole Foods have started a boycott, against one of their own.
Liberals are Pragmatic - Others are Utopians?
Mark Gimein labels his side as pragmatists and Mackey as a starry-eyed Utopian.
Pragmatists on all sides of the health care question (and probably every political question) believe that, on the whole, human nature does not change, and we've got to fight or not fight the health care war with the citizenry we've got, not the one we wish we had.
The vast majority of us are not Utopians but pragmatists. Mackey's fervent utopianism leads him to think that by radical deregulation on the one hand and better nutrition on the other, we can solve the health care conundrum. Like all Utopian ideas, left or right, these are far out of the mainstream—and so let the pragmatists see more clearly where the mainstream is.
-- Mark Gimein
Concerning people's basic Christian beliefs, "pragmatists" like Gimein however do believe human nature can be changed.
But, I have always thought the people who think society can all join hands in a huge happy collective are the starry-eyed utopians.
Liberals are Compassionate -- Others are Nazis?
Gimein did not go as far as calling Mackey a Nazi, but "rabid right-winger" is pretty darn close in my book.
Of course, in the town-hall debates, ordinary citizens have actually been labeled as Nazi.
But a simple reading of Mackey's essay will pretty much show that Mackey has a sensible plan to add to the nation's health-care debate, presented without injecting politics.
And thus proving the reverse -- that Mackey's liberal critics are "rabid left-wingers".
Now I am not calling them "Maoists" or "Stalinists", but I am coming pretty darn close.
Mackey's liberal critics have taken his attack on health care as a signal that the Whole Foods chief has finally revealed his true stripes as a rabid right-winger who believes, as the Whole Foods boycott site puts it, "that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich like him deserve."
-- Mark Gimein
Liberals do not want sensible, thought-provoking debate on public issues, they simply want all voices silenced except their own.
And the Jewish media-Scribe press pretty much insures that happens.
Personally attacking the man instead of the man's argument is fairly standard fare with liberals.
In fact, there was a boycott of Whole Foods started by Jewish Pharisee Mark E Rosenthal.
A Jewish Pharisee organizing against a sensible well thought out plan! -- no surprise there.
...as the Whole Foods boycott site puts it, "that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich like him deserve."
-- Jewish Pharisee Mark Rosenthal
Once again a Jewish Pharisee like Rosenthal is throwing out the old communist "Rich card", which they play when not playing the "Race card".
A Rich Card once again played to dismiss anything a successful man says which makes sense and played to dishonestly incite poor people who are not paying attention to the national debate.
Bypassing treasonous evil and opportunistic men like Rosenthal, please enjoy a thoughtful plan for honest, commonsense, and humane health care reform in the essay below.
CEO John Mackey's 8-Step Plan
By JOHN MACKEY
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."
--Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction--toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care--to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
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. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly--they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear--no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.--or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending--heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity--are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
--Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
You can read further at
The Problem.
You can read further at
The Solution.
Article located at:
http://www.thechristiansolution.com/doc2009/224_JohnMackey.html
