I have worked for Whole Foods Market since the waning days of the 20th century. It has been, for the most part, a positive experience. If it weren't a decent place to work, I wouldn't have stayed for so long.
Trust me on that.
That said, the purpose of this diary is not to bash Whole Foods Market or discuss whether or not it is more expensive than it's competitors, nor to enter into an analysis of the net effects, both positive and negative, of said company.
Nor is the purpose of this diary to trash CEO John Mackey. I disagree vehemently with Mr. Mackey on many issues. Still, his heart is sort of in the right space. He really does believe, in a round about sort of way, that three right turns will equal a left turn eventually. This works out OK when you're driving around the block, but not so well in the political abstract.
The purpose of this diary is to offer a point by point refutation of Mr. Mackey's Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Nothing more.
By now you have probably read John Mackey's infamous hit piece on health care reform. It begins with an inflammatory title, (which the corporate office now blames on the editors at WSJ), and a cute little quote from Margaret Thatcher:
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
If I may be so bold as to paraphrase;
"The problem with insurance companies is that eventually they run out of other people's money. (see AIG)"
Of course, the whole premise of Thatcher's quote is meaningless to a discussion of the type of reform being discussed, as socialized medicine isn't even on the table. In fact, Senator Baucus repeatedly had single payer advocates removed from discussions of health care reform. Including this quote is nothing more than demagoguery.
Mr Mackey then offers eight "reforms", which he thinks would be beneficial.
-Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
Of the eight, this is perhaps the most puzzling coming from Mr. Mackey. When our current health plan was first unveiled a few years back, it was sold to the team members as a last resort. Like all American companies, WFM was reeling under the ever rising costs forced on it by the insurance industry. WFM came up with a pretty novel solution, and one that actually does work out pretty well for most team members. And that is how it was sold. Now, however, Mr Mackey wants us to believe that this band aid is supposedly the cure all for health care reform in the U.S.
This epitomizes what I meant above by three rights not equalling a left in the political abstract.
Further confounding his thesis is the fact that, because the costs of insurance have continued their unsustainable climb, WFM has reversed a long held policy of hiring only full time employees. At one time, this insistence on a full time work force with full benefits was a point of pride for Mr. Mackey and for the company. No more. The rising costs of health insurance have forced Mr. Mackey to abandon this long held principle.
Our current system is anti-business.
It may be true that 89% of employees are currently full time, but the mandate is to reduce that to 70%. This is now company policy, and anyone who tells you differently is lying. Finally, let me add that it is not uncommon to see sign up sheets next to the time clock for the purpose of donating "PTO" (paid time off) hours to fellow team members who have exhausted their benefits and need help covering expenses until they are able to return to work. (This may need some elaboration. Say I have accumulated X hours of vacation / sick leave. During a PTO drive I may elect to donate some of my hours at my rate of pay to my fellow employee. ) Before you get too enraged by this concept, let me say that people need help under any system, and allowing employees to help others in tough times is a fairly progressive thing to do. But it does help undermine Mr. Mackey's thesis that he has a real solution to America's health care woes.
- Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.
Tax rebate / refund schemes do nothing to help the working poor get health insurance. Nothing.
-Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
Two points. One, there is a reason why your credit card bills all come from the same two states. Those two states allow the credit card industry to fuck you over more than the state you live in. Not something we want to emulate with health care.
Point two: Mr. Mackey states "Health care should be portable". I agree. Nothing is more portable than single payer, John. Looks like we have common ground!
-Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover
Mr Mackey states, "What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying." Let's play out how this would really work out...
Customer; "I need a plan that covers my diabetes"
Insurance Company; "Sure, that will be $2345.00 per month, with a $3500.00 deductable and your test kits aren't covered."
Customer; "I can't afford that!!"
Insurance Company; "Fuck you then. Drop dead."
-Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
A favorite canard of those opposed to health reform. Handily rebuked here by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Key point from the link -
This analysis of health insurance premiums was based on data collected from private and government employers with more than 200 employees for the period from 1999 to 2004 and examined premiums three to five years after tort reform was enacted, allowing for the impact of reform to filter through the system.
Key Findings:
1. Caps of noneconomic damages did not translate into lower health insurance premiums for consumers. Various types of analyses did not alter this finding.
2. A survey of empirical research does suggest tort reform has constrained the growth of malpractice premiums for providers but, as these authors note, these premiums are a very small component of health care costs and do not have much impact on overall costs.
3. From research by others, it is less clear whether doctors change the way they practice medicine after tort reform, although there is evidence of some cost reductions in cardiac and obstetric care.
Tort reform has not led to health care cost savings for consumers. Given the strength of this finding, the authors assert legislators need to reexamine whether tort reform offers consumers any benefits.
- Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.
Perhaps the reason that Japan, Canada, France and the rest of the first world are able to receive better healthcare for less money is that health care "consumers" in those countries make health care decisions based on researching the cheapest possible treatment for their ailments.
/Snark
-Enact Medicare reform
Maybe by allowing the government to negotiate prices just like Walmart does? That might be a good place to start if you were really serious about cost containment.
- 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.
No Comment.
It is in the main body of his op-ed that he truly goes off the deep end.
He begins with the typical right wing canard that there is no intrinsic "right" to health care outlined in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Originally, there was also no intrinsic right to direct democracy, (unless you were a white landowner). The point being that both documents are still relevant precisely because they are evolving, living documents. I may well argue, (and I do), that such a right is intrinsically implied in the Preamble of the Constitution when it says;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
He then further weakens his argument by repeating the lie that the rest of the first world has their health care "rationed", and that they face extremely long wait times for basic care. He closes out this section with a doozy of a half truth:
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.
(*This is the same journal that recently asserted that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he were British.)
Which begs the question... how are Californians doing? Are they better off?
In a word, NO
About 12.1 million Californians, or 37% of non-senior residents, were uninsured for at least one month during 2007 and 2008, Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a Washington, D.C.-based group, said Thursday. Most of them were uninsured for at least six months, Pollack said, and more than 80% of them were in working families. Minorities were more likely to be uninsured; 53% of Latinos and 38% of blacks were uninsured during the two-year period; for whites, 25% were uninsured.
But that doesn't begin to compare to the circular logic he engages in in the next paragraph;
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.
Really John? The fact that you offer, along with most other employers in Canada and the UK, some form of supplemental insurance is proof that there is no intrinsic right to health care in those countries? Maybe they want those benefits because you offer them, and it has nothing at all to do with whether they have a right to healthcare or not? Hmmm?
John then closes weakly by scolding us all for not eating our vegetables. By which I guess he means we should emulate India, where we can assume, based on their mostly vegetarian diet, they have far better health related outcomes unfettered by government intervention.
In closing let me assure those of you that are contacting WFM that you are having an effect. Keep up the pressure, and keep working for REAL health care reform.