The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

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:

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Chad Crowe

• 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 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.
 
Of course, Liberals are now boycotting a CEO with great ideas, who does not take a salary, and offers almost all his employees Health Care on top of $1000 to each employee to put towards whatever you want, it can even be applied to your deductables.
 

Whole Foods drama continues: Unions join in fight against CEO

Bruce WatsonAug 27th 2009 at 5:00PM
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Filed under: Company News, People, Healthcare

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In the latest move in the John Mackey/Whole Foods (WFMI) health care brouhaha, two unions have joined in the chorus of voices opposing the embattled CEO. The Change to Win (CtW) investment group and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) have released statements attacking Mackey and calling for a boycott of the store.This ongoing drama traces its roots to an op-ed article that Mackey published in The Wall Street Journal. Endorsing a cocktail of tax breaks and charity-based initiatives, he came out strongly against the universal health care policy that Obama (and, not coincidentally, many of his customers) endorse. Needless to say, many of Whole Foods' patrons felt stung by what they perceived as a corporate betrayal of their core policies. In addition to a torrent of attacks across the internet, this has led to a growing call for a boycott of the company.
In some interesting ways, this issue mirrors the battle between liberals and libertarians. Whole Foods' target demographic tends to be fairly liberal and, as such, is attracted to the company's socially-aware corporate governance as much as its high-quality food. From its decision to install fuel-cell generators in some of its stores to its commitment to philanthropy, many of While Foods' policies are designed to make its customers feel good about spending money there. And then there's the way that the company treats its workers. Whole Foods' employees are paid well above the market average, have full health coverage, and are reimbursed for their gym memberships. The company offers same-sex partner benefits, allows telecommuting for many of its workers, and has a strict nondiscrimination policy. In short, it's everything that a good liberal could want in a supermarket.Of course, all these benefits and donations come at a price, and Whole Foods passes much of this on to its consumers. But customers who are willing to pay a guilt premium for free-trade radicchio are likely to be the same sort of forward-looking, society-oriented liberals who support universal health care. Mackey, on the other hand, is a self-identified libertarian, which means that his politics tend more toward self-policing and a small role for government programs. In the case of Whole Foods, this perspective generally dovetails with the beliefs of his customers, in so far as responsible corporate stewardship and pro-employee policies are the kinds of things that both groups could support. However, big government solutions -- like universal health care that is funded by increased taxes -- is where liberals and libertarians part ways.From a business perspective, as far as Whole Foods is concerned, the politics of its customers are probably more important than the politics of its CEO. As previous battles against Bolthouse Farms and Coors (TAP) demonstrate, controversy and foodstuffs don't mix, particularly when one's target audience is noted for its political awareness. Given that Whole Foods' market position is inseparable from its socially activist image, Mackey's op-ed seems like an exercise in self-defeat.

However, while it is pretty obvious that Whole Foods should quickly and decisively move to distance itself from the statements of its CEO, it seems like the current boycott rivals Mackey's original move in its shortsightedness. By withholding patronage, Whole Foods' detractors convey the message that they require strict adherence to a hard liberal line. Never mind that Whole Foods does more for the environment, the needy, and its own employees than any other supermarket chain: its CEO has dared to utter heresy and must be clipped from the herd.Beyond this, CtW and UFCW's decision to jump on the boycott bandwagon seems more than a little disingenuous. As Mackey has made very clear in the past, he is firmly anti-union; although Whole Foods reached a compromise with organized labor back in March, it is fair to say that relations between the two sides are probably strained. In this context, it seems likely that the union boycott has little to do with health care and everything to do with Mackey's anti-union policies.If Whole Foods' customers are really liberal, then they will, perhaps, remember that true liberalism endorses the free flow of information, ideas, and perspectives. While they may not agree with Mackey's statements, their eagerness to censor him has effectively transformed righteous anger into bald-faced hypocrisy and bad business into bad politics. Even if Mackey isn't better than that, his customers certainly should be.