Mackey alienates his main constituency - was it ego, hubris or simply a bad marketing decision?
Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey received some unexpected backlash for an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal which enumerated “Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit”. Before I address some of the points Mackey makes in his piece, I would like to point out that I am the perfect example of Mackey’s biggest customer: a health-conscious, ecologically-minded, post-Boomer consumer who prefers organic and humane farming practices to traditional supermarket offerings; someone who has been touting a “green” lifestyle long before it was de rigeur; and someone who doesn’t mind spending a little more for locally-grown produce or the nice choice of bakery and prepared foods available at Whole Foods.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Loretta
All snark aside, I really don't think 85% of voters are even insured, much less happy. Based on the unemployment rate, the statistics of people looking for some kind of temporary insurance, the people running out of COBRA coverage, those too young for Medicare but too old to get affordable insurance, the self-employed and the ones who make too much money to get Medicaid but can't afford insurance amounts to an awful lot of people. So, this 85% figure is simply nonsense.
27 - Dr Dreadful
100% of people who are happy with their healthcare are happy with their healthcare.
28 - Loretta
And don't even get me started with this "government by fiat" canard when for 8 years the executive branch of our government ran the country as though Congress and the People didn't even exist.
29 - Clavos
I'm posting from my phone, Loretta, so I can't look it up right now. But there ARE polls that indicate that fully 85% of those with insurance are happy with it, yes.
30 - Loretta
That was not your claim, Clavos (and that's not true, either, and I'll cite several sources for what percentage of People With Insurance are happy with it).
What you said was"
And 85% of the voters (clearly a majority) agree with you. They have it. And they're happy with it."
So, allow me to dispel you of this myth.
31 - roger nowosielski
I'm all for argument, especially rational argument that is not coerced by distortions, misrepresentations and scare tactics.
Let's argue then the expenditures we keep on incurring for our present military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. If dollars and cents are at issue, let's start with this baby, and then let's move on to the domestic front.
Nothing short of that - a commitment, that is, to a serious discussion of the first-mentioned issue - will convince me that the intention of the nay-sayers is well-taken and honorable.
32 - roger nowosielski
Loretta is quite a fighter. Good show!
33 - Clavos
@#28:
So, because it happened for eight years under the Republicans, we're supposed to accept it now?
It isn'tt that akin to throwing good money after bad, which is in fact what we've been talking about?
34 - Tim
"As a licensed insurance agent, I can attest that most people not only don't read their policies to know what is already exempt or considered a "pre-existing condition", but most don't expect to get seriously ill and are not prepared for the financial consequences if they do."
So we should treat people like children instead of expecting them to act like adults? Apparently only the governing class can be trusted with making decisions; commoners are just too stupid.
"That’s essentially how medical insurance has worked for the past 50 years, leaving millions uninsured, millions of claims denied, millions of consumers going bankrupt over medical expenses and making health insurance the least competitive, least transparent and least fair product available to us through the free market. It’s not a free market. It’s rigged."
An odd contradiction. You say that health care has been provided for the past 50 years through "voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges" and then go on to say that "it is rigged." How can these both be true? It has to be one or the other. I agree that it is rigged, but primarily by the government. What we currently have is essentially a government created cartel. Mackey advocates policies to un-rig the system and return to a free market. "Greedy insurance companies" may be part of the problem, but a truly free market rewards the company that offers the best bang-for-the-buck, not the company that is the most greedy.
"Many bloggers and columnists have expressed outrage over Mackey’s callous plan, a plan that will not be part of any health care bills in a Democratic legislature."
Why is his plan callous? Because it doesn't play Robin Hood?
"But, what is more outrageous than his homage to profit and his ultimately unrealistic worldview is his short-sightedness in alienating his main constituency. Millions of Whole Food customers are now boycotting his store. I hope this is an expensive lesson to Mackey to stay under the radar."
You are right. If you haven't bought into the propaganda and group-think, just keep your mouth shut. We wouldn't want honest debate and reason to get in the way of the populist agenda. The populist agenda always brings liberty, right? I mean, just look at history...
35 - Loretta
A survey conducted jointly by the Kaiser Family Foundation, ABC News and USA Today, released in October 2006, found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with their own personal medical care, but only 44 percent were satisfied with the overall quality of the American medical system.
(This poll was taken in 2006 - before the crash)
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The most important fundamental is that 68% of American voters have health-insurance coverage they rate good or excellent.
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There’s also the reality that 74% of voters rate the quality of care they now receive as good or excellent. And 50% fear that if Congress passes health-care reform, it will lead to a decline in the quality of that care.
[another lower number (not 85%) and quality of care is not quality of health insurance]
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WASHINGTON (CNN) March 19, 2009 -- Most Americans like their health care coverage but are not happy with the overall cost of health care, a national poll shows.
President Obama has said that lowering health care costs will benefit the economy.
More than eight in 10 Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday said they're satisfied with the quality of health care they receive.
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CBS News - June 20, 2009:
A clear majority of Americans -- 72 percent -- support a government-sponsored health care plan to compete with private insurers, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.
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July 2009, Washington:
The poll Ignagni was citing actually undercuts her position: By 72 percent to 20 percent, Americans favor the creation of a public health insurance plan, the June survey by The New York Times and CBS News found. People also said they thought government would do a better job than private insurers of holding down health care costs and providing medical coverage.
In addition, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last year found that the people who like their health plans the most are the healthy people who use them the least â€" people who presumably have relatively little experience pursuing medical care or submitting claims.
~~~~~~~~~
Clavis, let's not confuse "quality of care" with "happy with health insurance." We can cite statistics all day, I can refute all your claims.
36 - Clavos
Not only am I against both wars (Bush's and Obama's), I'm in favor of withdrawing all our overseas troops, bringing them all home, and discharging about half of them.
37 - roger nowosielski
I hope you understand, Clavos, that it wasn't a challenge directed at you personally.
38 - Loretta
Tim asks:
"So we should treat people like children instead of expecting them to act like adults? Apparently only the governing class can be trusted with making decisions; commoners are just too stupid."
The government already treats us like children, and subsequently so does the media. We have to wear seatbelts, we have rating systems on movies, we have the FDA, we have an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies, we have cops with tasers, we have smoking bans, we have a war on drugs, we are supposed to be very afraid of Muslim Terr-ists, we don't know what's good for us, we have to take off our shoes in airports, etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum.
Were you protesting this then? Were you outraged? When did you start feeling offended by this? Where ya been, dude?
39 - Loretta
Tim asks:
"Why is his plan callous? Because it doesn't play Robin Hood?"
It's callous because HSAs are not good plans for people with chronic illness, children with health issues, people who need regular meds and people without bank accounts or cash on hand to spend on deductibles, which are as much as $5,000 per family or more.
Tim snarks:
"You are right. If you haven't bought into the propaganda and group-think, just keep your mouth shut. We wouldn't want honest debate and reason to get in the way of the populist agenda. The populist agenda always brings liberty, right? I mean, just look at history..."
The problem with Mackey's op-ed is if he were the VP of Marketing and not the CEO, he would have been fired. Not because his opinions are wrong or because of his politics, but because it was bad for business. It was a dumb thing to do.
40 - roger nowosielski
Yeah,
It's interesting how everyone's sensibilities are suddenly reawakened when it comes to healthcare debate or some such other momentous issue.
41 - Loretta
Roger, you and I both know why this issue is suddenly bringing formerly content and complacent people out of the woodwork - because passing a good health care plan during a Democratic administration and majority will seal the Republican's fate for years to come. They will not likely return to power for another decade or more.
That's the bottom line.
Suddenly, people are worried about deficits and debt when they didn't make a peep when we went into hock for the wars, worried about raising taxes (most don't even pay income tax) when they were not even recipients of Bush's tax cuts, worried about grandma getting unplugged even though poor seniors in this country live like dogs, I know first hand.
It's just malarky posing as concern. They don't care about health insurance, they just want Obama to fail. Simple as that.
42 - roger nowosielski
Ain't that the truth (and I am not saying that about each and every debater). Political fortunes come before the well-being of the nation.
43 - Clavos
#45 is nothing but puré left wing BS propaganda and conjecture.
You have succeeded in bringing the discussion down to a childish level.
I'm done.
44 - Baronius
Loretta, a word of advice. You're all over the place. You should present an argument against Mackey's ideas based on...well, on Mackey's proposal, not on Obama and wiretaps and the drug war.
45 - Cindy
31 - Good stuff, Roger. That is the bottom line. Enough stealing crumbs from the poor. Have a look at the military-industrial complex. As I recall some Democrats were in favor of continuing a contract for aircraft (IIRC) that couldn't even be used effectively, but they didn't want to piss off their constituents. We have Dan(Miller), elsewhere trumpeting the benefits of everyone having to serve in the military, so they can learn to fix cars or some nonsense. (As if a free school wouldn't be a better place to teach people whatever they'd want to learn).
32 - Yeah, I agree. Good show, Loretta! Gotta love a fighter.
46 - Loretta
Baronious, it's all related.
47 - Loretta
Clavos, you misrepresent polls and statistics, you cherry-pick your data, you post "right wing talking points" without supporting your arguments with facts and citations, you defend the status quo on one hand and then claim to want to end the war on the other, and now you say I have reduced the discussion to a childish level?
Fine, take your ball and go home, Jack.
48 - roger nowosielski
I hope this isn't the end of discussion. Clavos is one of the reasonable voices. Is there a common ground there somewhere?
49 - Clavos
Loretta I freely agree that I did misrepresent the one poll statistic, bit I subsequently corrected it, and in any case it was an honest mistake.
I fail to see any dichotomy between being against the wars yet also gainst Obamacare, Nor am I about to apologize for my libertarian/conservative stance.
And at least I did not resort to bizarre, puerile speculative mind reading, as you did in your remarks about the motivations (about which you cannot possibly know anything) of those opposed to Obamacare
50 - Loretta
My interpretation of the motives of some of the right against universal health care is neither puerile nor bizarre.
Did you rail against the Iraq invasion as much as you are now railing against government-sponsored health care? If so, I am very interested in reading your opinions about that in your blog archives or anywhere else you posted. TIA.
51 - Clavos
Sorry Loretta, but framing the discussion on what a participant did in regard to a totally different issue is irrelevant. I have stated my positions on Obamacare and to a lesser degree, Mackey's stance, both part of your article. What I think about either of the wars is not germane, and neither is your sophomoric speculation about what motivates those with whom you disagree.
52 - Baronius
Come on, Clavos. Don't be a spoilsport. This looks like fun.
Loretta! Do me next! What are my motives?
53 - Loretta
Clavos, you continue to be disingenuous, so what is the point of discussing any of these issues? You did not correct your misrepresentation. Scroll up and verify for yourself.
Obviously, if you could point me to where you wrote as vehemently against the invasion as you do public healthcare, you would. Since you cannot, I am supposed to take your word for it.
My point is, you claim to have been against the invasion in Iraq (it's not a war), but you cannot show that; however, you are expending time and energy arguing against universal health care. Why? Why should it matter to you? It won't affect you or your wife in Florida. You are self-employed and soon to be on the most socialist of all medical programs - Medicare; unless you want to turn it down. Are you going to turn it down?
I'm just asking you to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.
54 - Mark
(Baronius #52 -- getting on Jesus' good side?)
55 - Baronius
No fair, Mark. This is Loretta's game.
56 - roger nowosielski
Mother Mary's then?
57 - Mark
Rog, we have to be careful with Loretta. She is so naive as to be skeptical concerning the lizard peoples' domination of our planet.
58 - roger nowosielski
She doesn't strike me as naive, Mark. And although comparing the motivation of some in this debate as emanating from a lizard's brain is rather cold, it's not that much off target. Although I would exclude Clavos from the bunch.
I just wish that the disingenuous charge was used less often and only as a matter of last resort because it terminates the discussion. We all should try to win people to our side rather than shut them off.
59 - Cindy
lol!
60 - Cindy
Roger? You mean you think Mark was just being amusing? You doubt the existence of the lizard people? Um, okay, never mind then.
61 - roger nowosielski
He's been known to pull a leg or two, Cindy. So yes!
62 - Mark
While the lizards might be metaphor, the power structures sure seem to be dominated by those who thrive on suffering.
63 - roger nowosielski
So they're vampires as well.
Did you know, BTW, that the healthcare debate has been going on in the US for almost a hundred years now - going back to Teddy R? There was a segment on NPR, and they closed wondering what the next seventy years of debating will bring. If we last that long.
64 - Mark
They had health care back then? Wow
65 - roger nowosielski
Well, there were private insurers, but the idea was to "socialize" medicine, along the same lines as the Social Security Act.
"Socialization" didn't carry the stigma then as it does today. Speaking of progress.
66 - Cindy
A metaphor? I think not. The Reptilian Agenda is clear.
(Sorry for joking. It strikes me that people are almost like a wall to the suffering of others. But, I am in 48rd place in a 9239 player tourney with only 1491 people left. So, I am on a break from seriousness.)
67 - Cindy
1 Million Strong Against our SOCIALIST Fire Departments
For too long now, fire departments across the United States have been socialist organizations, resulting in taxes on the American people.
FACT: Most Americans never use the socialized services of the fire department. The Obama administration has been very clear about keeping the status quo when it comes to taxpayer-funded fire departments.
It is time to open the fire department up to private industry. We have the best fire departments in the world in the US, but that doesn't mean that anyone (even non-US citizens) should be able to dial up and have fires put out, etc. There are private companies (Halliburtion, Etc.) who could step in tomorrow and take over every fire department in America and charge the consumer directly.
This is AMERICA. NO FREE FIRE SAFETY.
"Better DEAD than fire truck RED."
-member D.J. Hostettler
68 - roger nowosielski
This world is getting crazier but the minute, Cindy. I'll post some pertinent citations tomorrow (you know by whom!)
Good luck with your game and all else.
69 - Cindy
Good deal Roger. Can't wait to read the book. I'll do it all at once.
(Thanks...I just went out in 1085th place to a player with 4 aces--oh well, FH can't win every time.)
70 - Dave Nalle
Roger, you and I both know why this issue is suddenly bringing formerly content and complacent people out of the woodwork - because passing a good health care plan during a Democratic administration and majority will seal the Republican's fate for years to come. They will not likely return to power for another decade or more.
Loretta, you really have no grasp of the situation at all. You seem eager to repeat talking points without investigating at all. This is NOT a good health care plan. I dispute whether it's even a health care plan at all. Republicans have made major efforts to address the flaws and every proposal they have offered has been voted down on stright partisan lines. That's fine. There's no mandate of bipartisanship, but so many compromises have been made that what they are considering passing now is such a mess that Republicans should be sitting back and letting Democrats pass it unilaterally because it will doom the Democrats for years to come.
Suddenly, people are worried about deficits and debt when they didn't make a peep when we went into hock for the wars,
The people I know who are worried about our current deficit situation were just as worried when Bush was overspending at a marginally manageable level for his wars.
worried about raising taxes (most don't even pay income tax) when they were not even recipients of Bush's tax cuts,
Bush cut taxes for EVERY tax bracket. Try to keep the lies to a minimum if you want to maintain any credibility.
worried about grandma getting unplugged even though poor seniors in this country live like dogs, I know first hand.
So they'd be happier dead? Nice.
Dave
71 - Loretta
I can't be intimidated or insulted by someone like you, Dave. I suggest everyone who reads this comment section click on your name and read your blog.
I feel sorry for you. God bless. I hope some day you can feel joy and hope and love the world again. Peace.
72 - Baronius
I'm sorry, Loretta; we're out of time. The answer we were looking for is "concern for the country". Yes, concern for the country. Any time you're debating someone about national policy, you should always assume they're motivated by a good-faith concern for the country. Thanks for playing.
73 - Loretta
I encourage healthy debate, but I hardly think that universal or single-pay health care is a threat to the country. I'm a 5th generation American and I am appalled at what has happened to our country in the last 10 years, since the latter part of the Clinton administration to today.
I suggest these so-called concerned citizens put their and energy into examining the atrocities committed right in our own backyard.
For example, millions right now are unemployed and living on $400 a week, which is the average weekly unemployment check. Millions of jobs have been lost forever, starting with all the manufacturing that disappeared since the early 90s. What is being done to help the homeless or poor neighbors right now? What kind of jobs is Dave creating?
I challenge you to visit any average senior housing highrise and see how the average 70-yr old making $900 a month on Social Security, paying $100 a month for Medicare plus deductibles, prescriptions and copays lives. I want you to live on $700 a month, $200 goes for rent, $100 to Medicare and $50 for their frickin' cable TV.
I want you to be proud of how our government, our people, have left the poorest, weakest and most innocent of our society to live RIGHT now. And then suit up and go to Iraq or send your sons to fight for this war on terror.
Be part of the solution, Baronius.
74 - Cindy
Well Baronius' concern for the country lies more in the area of protecting those with money from the people mentioned above.
Besides, Baronius is Catholic and Jesus said (somewhere) you don't have to give people your stuff if you don't want to. Helping the poor is optional. You can just pray for old people in high rises and hope god likes them enough to help them (somehow).
Besides, most people are poor because they are lazy. They always seem to have money for vices too. Many spend all their money on drugs (yeah, yeah, so what if it's heart medicine).
75 - Baronius
Cindy, I hope you're just insulting me and Catholicism (not a rare thing for you to do), and that you don't actually believe that I think that.
Loretta, I do believe that the currently proposed health care reforms would damage our country. It would adversely affect the cost, coverage, and quality of our health care. There are several reforms that I would support. A lot of them are laid out in Mackey's editorial. As for me going to Iraq to prove my position on health care, that's just more mashing of issues.