Dollars & Sense: YES, TO HEALTHCARE FOR ALL, NO, TO MACKEY'S WHOLE FOOD CARE

[marmar]

Whole Foods and Health Care
by Dollars and Sense


John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods (or as we call it here in Boston, Whole Paycheck), wrote a hide-bound and ideological op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last month (find it here). The first tip-off that it's going to be silly is that it calls health-care reform "Obamacare" (nothing like a little derision right in the title of an op-ed to command the interest of the readers of the WSJ opinion pages). What follows are all the usual canards of the Right's views on health care, and all their usual free-market, individualistic, deregulatory policy solutions.

A movement has developed to boycott Whole Foods because of Mackey's opposition to meaningful (i.e., single-payer) health-care reform. The group Single Payer Action is also part of this boycott. Now would be a good time to shift over to farmers' markets and food co-ops to send Mackey and Whole Foods a message.

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Boycott Whole Foods website: Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and other books about food and food production, has weighed in against the boycott, because although Mackey is wrong about health care, "Whole Foods is often right about food," Pollan tells us. According to the Boycott Whole Foods website, Pollan has spoken at a conference put on by America's Health Insurance Plans (the main lobbying organization for the health insurance industry), on a panel entitled "Leaving the 'Fast Food Nation' Behind: Challenging American's Attitudes Towards Personal Responsibility and Health." (The other speaker on that panel was Richard Thaler, co-author of the pop-behavioral economics book Nudge.) And he posted against the Whole Foods boycott on the website of archconservative David Frum (newmajority.com).

Now, I don't begrudge Michael Pollan an appearance at an AHIP conference (Howard Dean also spoke on a panel at the conference), or a comment on a website "dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement," as its "About" page says. The man is pretty much omnipresent, so why not in these venues? But it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't seem to get the importance of collective action. I heard a radio version of a talk he gave a couple of years ago--it was about the prevalence of corn in the American diet (via corn syrup, mostly, but also as feed for the animals that become our meat), and the history of overproduction of corn post WWII. A terrific talk--the whole time I was craving broccoli (which I don't usually care for too much), because I figured there's no way they'd figured out how to make broccoli with corn. But in the question period, someone asked him early on what we could do about this, and all he had to say was something about making good choices about what we eat, choosing to shop at places (like Whole Foods) that offer fresher food, etc. There doesn't appear to be a truly political bone in his body--for him it's all about individual consumer choice. (It reminded me of Al Gore's otherwise terrific movie, ending with rousing call for us to change our lightbulbs.) So I'm not surprised that Pollan blandly opposes this boycott.

Joel Harrison, who wrote this terrific article for us last year, has written a point-by-point rebuttal of John Mackey's WSJ op-ed. Here are the basics; click on the links to get the details on each point.

YES, TO HEALTHCARE FOR ALL, NO, TO MACKEY'S WHOLE FOOD CARE
Rebuttal to John Mackey's Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, "The Whole Foods Alternative to 'ObamaCare'"

By Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH | September 8, 2009


John Mackey's editorial in the Wall Street Journal is merely a continuation of the myths propagated by the for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical industries and the right-wing think tanks they fund. His suggestions would take us farther in the direction that has already failed.

For this rebuttal I'll focus on the following points:

* Healthcare IS a right in other countries. So, what does our Constitution "guarantee?" The European Union's Constitution includes Health Care as a Right. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1936 that Article II Section 8's "Promote the General Welfare" applied to Social Security. Medicare falls under this ruling. Though not binding, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by the United States, includes medical care as a right. (Details and references)
* Does health reform mean a "government take-over?" Ridiculous question but NO! Free markets do not work without rules and an independent arbiter. All Bills before Congress maintain the private sector for delivery of health care, both hospitals and doctors; but include regulations such as protection from arbitrary loss of health insurance and greater transparency. (Details and references)
* Repealing mandates on what insurance must cover & state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. Without some minimum national regulations and means of enforcement, companies will incorporate in states with the least regulations and enforcement, leaving consumers vulnerable. (Details and references)
* Health Savings Accounts—Why they don't work. 80% of health care costs for individuals in the U.S. exceed $2,500 and 73% exceed $5,000, so people would rapidly exhaust their health savings accounts. Sick and injured people trust their doctors to make appropriate decisions and neither have the skills for making the decisions nor the availability of data to base such decisions on. High deductibles leads to reductions in both appropriate and inappropriate care, e.g. blood pressure monitoring. (Details and references)
* Medicare reform and finances—Why we will not allow Medicare to go bankrupt. Medicare has done a better job than private insurance companies in keeping costs down. Medicare covers the costliest sector of our population, altogether over 43 million Americans. Private insurance would either be denied due to pre-existing conditions or prohibitively expensive. Medicare pays for all specialty residencies and subsidizes hospitals with a high proportion on uninsured. Without Medicare, besides the human tragedy of seeing our loved ones experience both reduced quality and length of life, emergency rooms will collapse under the additional strain, hospitals will close, and many doctors will go out of business. Medicare's cost cannot be separated from a health care system whose current projectory is unsustainable. (Details and references) .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/blog/2009/09/whole-foods-and-health-care.html

[mod mom]

1. I, for one, no longer shop there and previously did on a regular basis.

I miss their organic wine section and marinated garlic, but not enough to want to reward such a selfish bastard as Mackey.

[marmar]

2. I gave it up last week....and I'm going to miss the Allegro coffees and pastries.

But there are plenty of other high-end food markets, farmers markets and food coops to fill the void.

[mod mom]

3. Have you read anything suggesting the boycott is hurting them?

I am really hoping. :hi: They should fire the CEO!

[marmar]

4. I haven't seen anything statistical yet......

...... but the fact that they've embarked on such a massive spin campaign to counter the boycott and distance the corp. from the CEO's "health care manifesto" makes me think they've felt it.