Protesters are targeting Whole Foods because of comments made by company CEO John Mackey made in an op-ed in the Walls Street Journal earlier this month.
At first, the protests seemed unlikely to have much effect, unlikely to shift the debate much. In fact, there was the very real possibility that they could backfire.
But Whole Foods now appears to be the poster company in the current healthcare debate and, especially because the company’s reputation (upscale progressivism) is belied by its aggressive anti-unionism, Mackey’s comments could be creating the kind of momentum that has been lacking on the left side of the discussion.
Here is what Mackey had to say:
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.
Someone should tell Mackey that the markets for food and shelter have massive flaws, that there are thousands — possibly millions — of hungry and homeless Americans and that food prices have been outpacing inflation for quite some time.
As World War II was winding down, Franklin Delano Roosevelt unveiled a new “Economic Bill of Rights” that included:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
Roosevelt said “these rights spell security” and would help move the nation toward “new goals of human happiness and well-being.” William Greider, in his new book Come Home, America (excerpted in May 6 edition of The Nation), described Roosevelt’s “Bill of Rights” as setting the agenda for the three decades that followed.
One important condition government can provide is the platform of “essential needs” that will give everyone more security and therefore more confidence to explore new and different choices. We could dust off Roosevelt’s “second Bill of Rights” and address its unmet goals. FDR recognized in early 1944 that Americans were weary of the sacrifices imposed by World War II and so he announced a broadly conceived promise. After the war is won, he said, the country must construct a new set of meaningful “rights” for all, everything from health and education to work with remunerative wages. His vision of the future became the postwar political agenda of the Democrats, and in large measure the promises were kept.
Greider says we are at a point in history where we need to return to Roosevelt’s construct and expand upon it — to finish what FDR started.
Which brings me back to health care and the market. Roosevelt, basically, was saying was that there are some things in life that are too important to be left to the market. Health care is one of those things.
That’s why I believe we need a single-payer healthcare system, one in which the federal government — or some independent agency created by the feds — acts as the funder of all care, with doctors and hospitals remaining independent. Care would be up to medical personnel without interference from insurance companies.
I won’t pretend that such a change won’t have its difficulties — but the reorganization of the system would be an improvement on what we currently deal with. Critics of reform raise the specter of tax hikes and rationing, but we’re already paying through the nose and having our care rationed — but instead of a rationing by triage, with decisions made based on effectiveness and need, the insurance companies base their decisions on profit and profit alone.
Mackey’s belief in the market probably wouldn’t have triggered such disdain, however, had he not also blamed the victim in the healthcare fiasco. He said that “many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted,” blaming the rising costs on obesity and diseases that he says “are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.” Making better lifestyle choices would help stem rising prices.
There is nothing wrong with better choices, but the issue here isn’t McDonald’s hamburgers and Krispy Kreme donoughts. It’s access and cost and it is offensive to say that the people who are forced to use emergency rooms for primary care have brought it on themselves.
Hence, the protests, which are a direct response to the callousness of Mackey’s piece and a desire, a need, to put single-payer on the table.
Hank Kalet 
Very well stated!
What Frisky said.
Back in 2008, this Whole Foods, CEO John Mackey (how old is this kid?), was caught posting negative comments (trash talk) about a competitor on Yahoo Finance message boards in an effort to push down the stock price. So now I am suppose to take this loser seriously? Please, snore, snore.It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people (honestly where can they go with a pre-condition). And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a “lynch mob” advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types AKA “screamers” are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.
People like Mackey, soulless wealthy sociopaths, just don't give a damn that there are tens of millions of Americans without health care in this, the richest country on earth. He's filthy rich, he's covered, his loved ones are covered and beyond that he does not care. His view is that if you don't have health insurance, it's your fault so you are not worthy and you are undeserving of care. FDR called them economic royalists. Not all millionaires are soulless bastards, it's not about the money, it's about the type of person you are. There are heartless soulless sociopaths of every possible economic stripe, rich, poor and everything in between.
>People like Mackey, soulless wealthy sociopathsNow I'm not going to assert that capitalists are the Mother Teresa's of the world. BUT, (there is always a big butt), they are not the Devil Incarnate either. Mackey feeds the hungry. OK, you're not going to see it that way. And, he's well compensated for his modest efforts. I read his WSJ op ed and I thought the fellow has courage. He could have just as easily said nothing. Like the \”Silent Majority\”, who don't have the stones to speak up and give us the benefit of their wisdom or whizdumb!I think you misread his text and his intention. Creating more gooferment isn't the solution to ANY problem. Fixing the gooferment's perverse incentives is almost always the best answer. >just don't give a damn that there are tens of millions of Americans without health care in thisFor the moment, let's ASSUME that there are 45 million uninsured. They do GET health care via emergency rooms and hospitals, but there is some modest agreement that: (1) it's not cost effective to do that; (2) it delays small problems into big ones; and (3) it's not efficient.Wouldn't it be better to give everyone a tax credit to buy insurance? (Certainly better than 'cash for klunkers!) I'm sure the \”greedy\” insurance companies would happily \”suborn\” the premium (i.e., like the tax prep firms, your social security number gets you a 'refund anticipation loan'. So to your social gets you an 'insurance anticipation loan for health insurance'.)So why isn't this idea debated? Because the special interests don't get control! Politicians don't get to tell people what's good for them.And, obtw, those rich youngsters who don't want to buy insurance don't have anyone else to blame. And, the supposedly \”illegal\” aliens wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have welfare programs. (That is, if there was no \”free\” education, welfare, and healthcare, then the only folks who came wanting to work would be coming here. Like the old days. Get on the boat and come, we always have room for more workers. Most of us have ancestors who hit the dock with just a smile! Heck, I'd be issuing green cards with tins at the dock and thanking them for coming. That's the America personified by the Status of Liberty. Come one and come all. We have enough freedom for everyone. That's Libertarian.)And, criminals — \”illegal\” or not — lock them up!And, obtw, in a Libertarian America, the drug dealers would have to find other work. We'd eliminate all the drug laws. (What would the Colombian Drug Lords do? Go back to farming or cheating widows?) So, we turn Big Pharma loose making the best cleanest drugs possible. (It's estimated that currently \”illegal\” street drugs would cost little more than aspirin. And, do you think that WalMart or Walgreens would sell heroin to children? WalMart won't sell X rated videos because their customers would punish them.) We could empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders.America would be supercharged!!! >He's filthy rich, he's covered, his loved ones are covered and beyond that he does not care.And, how about all those 'caring' politicians who say 'good for thee, but not for me'. >FDR called them economic royalists. FDR was the biggest souless empoverisher, next to old \”Honest Abe\”, in American history. His economic ignorance created Social Security to empower the Democratic Party and set us on the Road to Hell. By eliminating gold currency, he permitted the welfare warfare state to explode.>I really hope that some day we can try peace!
Alert the media, Mr. Rienke is for universal ER care (or is he?). Does that make him a socialist, commie, pinko, Leninist-Marxist, leftist, Maoist, Marxist-Leninist hippy?If people are for universal ER care, let's go the next step and have universal health care.Mackey feeds the poor? He feeds all the poor in America? Does he get a tax deduction for his \”altruism?\” He's against universal health care because he does not want to pay any more taxes. Even with Obama's proposed modest tax increases for the rich, Mackey would still be filthy rich. Buffett and Gates say they should pay more taxes.
No I'm not for \”universal anything\”. Other than liberty! I wish to be free and extend that same freedom to all. Just as I'd like to be extended to me.If Anonymous wants to pass the hat, I'll chip in VOLUNTARILY. But, that doesn't mean he or his government agents can stick a gun in my face and order me to \”voluntarily contribute\”!I said that Mackey feeds \”the hungry\”. Not necessarily the poor. He's entitle to keep EVERY penny of what he earns. Anonymous, or his band of thugs, is NOT entitled to STEAL it from him. No matter how noble they feel their cause is!Argh!
Reinkefj got it exactly right. FDR hadn't a clue in his second bill of rights. He was setting the stage for dependency and entitlement that plagues the US to this day. Mackey, whom I'm sure you detractors have a clue about, provides a great service by speaking his mind – providing cogent thought to the debate that is non-accusing and actually provides recommended solutions. There are NO solutions being put forth in DC, only that it's broken and we need tax dollars and control to fix it. Ha!There are no inherent rights to health care in the US – none! If the government wants to focus on fixing the problem, then maybe they should state the problem. No one is talking about HEALTH (as Mackey did). They are just talking about who pays – not the problem. If we started to focus on the health part of health care — i.e. personal responsibility, deregulating alternative health care, evidence or outcome-based treatments — we wouldn't be having the conversation. Costs would be contained and we wouldn't need another bailout to fund another despicable government program.Wake up people… Mackey has it right and Reinke does too.
@eve Thanks. I thought I was in the vast waste land. Sadly, if we get back to basic fundamentals, then we could move forward in unity. I like the idea that we pay our taxes quarterly. Forget all the artificial nonsense about SSI as a separate line item. There's no \”lock box\”, so it's all just one big tax. If people had to write big checks every quarter, there would be politicians' head on every pike in the nation. Make the salary for political office a dollar a year.
@eve Thanks. I thought I was in the vast waste land. Sadly, if we get back to basic fundamentals, then we could move forward in unity. I like the idea that we pay our taxes quarterly. Forget all the artificial nonsense about SSI as a separate line item. There's no \”lock box\”, so it's all just one big tax. If people had to write big checks every quarter, there would be politicians' head on every pike in the nation. Make the salary for political office a dollar a year.