Comrade Mackey has betrayed our glorious cause and has sided with the vile KKKapitalists! We must purge him for The Common Good(TM). I request permission from our Dear Leader and the Commissar of Kicking in Doors, and of Communal Impaling for me and my elite platoon of ubersturmfuhrers to pay a visit to his domicile and haul his ass to the furnaces convince him of the error of his thoughts.

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The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

By JOHN MACKEY

AUGUST 11, 2009

"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 overtime. 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 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, 830,000Canadians 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 100years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enact edit 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.

I could shop at my local co-ops, but I do most of my shopping at Whole Foods. I would starve to death if it weren't for Mr. Mackey or at least I'd have to go out to restaurants a lot more. So Whole Foods saves me money.

I love the workers with their rainbow hair and the one I'll call Pat is my favorite. One week she's a girl and the next a boy. He, she just keeps me guessing!

I don't think the boycott will go anywhere. Afterall, they don't actually want lousy healthcare for themselves. I don't think they're that crazy?

Yes Comrade Turnitoff,

I agree Comrade Mackey has shown his true colors, that he is a KKKapitalist, and must be severely punished. I too have strolled the Isle of Whole Foods, studied the Granola laden shelves, searched for fair trade toilet paper.

Yes I can not help but notice the parking lot is lined with BMW's Mercedes Benz'es, the obligatory Jaguar, and very rarely a Chevrolet Impala. But of course were you to speak to the drivers, they would tell you they dropped 20 bucks in the Salvation Army pot last Christmas, and they celebrated "Kwanzaa" last year because they know "Black People" and did not realize that prisoners made up "Kwanzaa" and lastly that they feel so much better that they now eat organic food that only cost 15 times more than "Food Lion" even if it tastes like crap.

Comrade Turnitoff, I must say that you are well on your way to become a "Made Progressive" and you appear to have the vision of the world of next Tuesday. I shall keep a close eye on your progress, and perhaps have come to Camp Fluffy, where you can see my Brainless GoonsHighly Trained Troopers honing their skills. And Just maybe We could discuss the possibility position at one of the "Hemlock" restaurants.


Commissar Red Star CEO Hemlock HospitalityäINC
Director of Kicking Doors at Midnight
Keeper of the sacred Plasma Cutter
Herdsman of Rainbow Farting Unicorns
Defender of the Faith

What would Emperor Obamis of Arugala say?

We could discuss the possibility position at one of the "Hemlock" restaurants.


Hmmm is very good bribe offer comrade. But who will take over as the new Sturmhauptfuhrer of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt Division of the Kriminalpolizi? Who will be responsible for stoking the People's furnaces ^TM with the bodies of thoughtcriminals eviromentally friendly alternate fuel supplies? Who will kick in the doors at midnight to spread the glorious word of Dear Leader by any means necessary? Who I ask you, Who? My loyal brigades welcome Dear Leader's change, but they must by all means be commanded by a loyal member of the Outer Party who can lead them with an iron chain. Do you know such a comrade, Comrade?

Mackey is just another PLANT! He's shown his true colors. And I don't mean green, like an organic fair-trade plant. I mean the kind of PLANT the great 'O' was talking about at his glorious (and historic) townhall meeting in NH. The wild-eyed radical swastika wielding mainstreamers! The militant conservative hordes! The Christians are starting the fires! It's the conservatives!!!

WHAT!!! How dare that prole question the wisdom of the Dear Leader! He must be sent to a reeducation camp at once!

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, an interview with Mackey:

The Conscience of a Capitalist
The Whole Foods founder talks about his Journal health-care op-ed that spawned a boycott, how he deals with unions, and why he thinks CEOs are overpaid.

I ask if he thinks the attacks were instigated by unions. While many other grocery chains are unionized, Whole Foods is not. "Well, the unions have had an adversarial relationship with us," he replies. "I don't think all the protests are strictly union-based, but I do think the unions have contributed to that. I think they've piled on and in some cases are orchestrating some of it." He says he can't divulge private information about whether the boycott hurt sales, but the stock hasn't taken any hit.

"I sometimes think that unions don't understand that we live in a free society and people have the right to not select union representation if they don't want it. I oftentimes hear things like 'Whole Foods is preventing people from unionizing,' which is a lie. That's illegal. We can't prevent anyone from unionizing," Mr. Mackey says.

So why aren't they choosing it? "Because it's not in their best interest," he insists. "We have better benefits and higher pay" than Whole Foods' unionized competitors. "We wish the unions would respect people's right to not have a union." Do they keep agitating? "Yeah, they do."

- https://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014 ... 70676.html