The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

[NewEngland4Obama]

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:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

[ProSense]

1. Interesting

if you're a member of the lunatic RW.

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.

[Oregone]

4. Its quite deceptive about the wait list numbers in Canada

You really cannot quanitify access to care by wait list numbers, because all those 830,000 people in the queue could get appropriate care in a proper time, to be replaced with another queue full. So you may have a revolving queue, but no one is getting denied treatment when they need it. The US also has many people needing treatment at one time, who may also get it within a certain period. Collecting the total number of people needing surgery is a better indication of the health of the people and the ability of people to pay for a treatment (not their ability to access it in an appropriately timely fashion)

In my province, the queue times are actually pretty reasonable for elective surgeries and its very dependent on need, as determined by the specialist. There isn't a provincial waitlist, but it depends on the facility you go to and doctor you pick (some have more demand than others).

Using queue quantity is a fallacious cherry picking of stats that says basically nothing.

Here is a good FAQ from BC on wait lists in general:

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/waitlist/faq.html

Here is their median wait times (better measurement)

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/cpa/mediasite/waitlist/median.html

Corneal transplants, hip and knee surgeries are really the lacking ones. A lot of old people put demand on em

[PSPS]

7. Yeah, that got me too

With so many people waiting for treatment, it's no surprise that citizens of Canada and the UK are clamoring to abandon their health care systems and change to the US model.

Oh, wait. They aren't.

The statistics are a lie, of course. But the right-wing WSJ thinks they can get away with printing it by putting it on their opinion page and including the caveat, "according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily."

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. He must live in an alternate reality than I do

:shakes head:

[Donnachaidh]

2. a Thatcher quote did not bode well, and the HSA as the first *fix* killed this

:eyes:

Of course, this is Murdoch's paper, so I shouldn't be surprized.

[eleny]

3. And in a capitalist systerm there's only so much blood you can suck out of the turnips

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Seems the GOP uses other venues to whip up fear...

Who'd a thunk...

Health Care is not socialism. At no point in this debate has it ever approached socialism. And Thatcher is an ugly salacious old Conservative whore.

"Margret Thacher Naked on a cold day"
-- Austin Powers

The only thing that the Wall Street Journal knows is what Murdock,the GOP, and Health Insurance Companies put in the tiny vestigial brains of its writers.

[frazzled]

6. This is from last summer--and why we boycott WF

We've been all over this six ways to Sunday. It's a despicable article, and Mackey has now resigned as CEO of Whole Foods. (Whether because of this or not, I don't know.)

I'm all for reminding people about this whackjob, but I'll bow out for now because I feel like we exhausted the topic of WF, Mackey, health savings accounts and high deductibles, etc. a long time ago.

[prolesunited]

8. What do YOU think of what he said?

And why are you posting this retread here?

[NYC_SKP]

9. Actually, the Exact Opposite is true. Medicare for all will be the Solution.

While a couple of the 8 suggestions in the WSJ seem sound, the thrust of that article is what the RW has wanted all along.

Medicare and Social Security are FUCKING CONTRACTS with us, and we will NOT let them go unfulfilled.

fuck that shit.

[peacetalksforall]

10. When this came out last summer, I moved to a boycott of Whole Foods even

though I don't always approve of boycotts of businesses because I don't want to hurt the employees - there are variables to my postiion about hurting employees.

I think this man is despicable for his conflict of interests.

His health foods - yes. Our health - to hell with us.

I didn't know he had resigned? Does anyone know if he was replaced by someone just like him or is their a step up.

I can't begin to state how turned off I was with Whole Foods after reading his position.

It's been a pleasure to boycott HIM. I have alternatives and I had a partial boycott underway because of some articles I read about product source choices he made and some really bad deli food I had there, plus some bad service at one of them on several occassions.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. The standard rightwing bullshit.

HSA and high deductible plans: push costs to individuals, those at the bottom cannot afford either high deductibles or HSAs.

Race to bottom by repealing state regulations. The worst state wins, we all get Alabama Care.

Repeal all coverage mandates: seriously what the fuck is Mackey smoking?

Ah of course tort reform: contributes almost nothing to health care costs, but fuck those liberal lawyers.

Cost transparency: sure, as soon as Whole Screws has to publish their costs. Suddenly gummint regulation is a good thing?

Alrighty: tax deduction for charitable contributions to other people's health care. That ends up being the Final Solution for those damn poor people who can't afford the care Mackey gets: go beg for it.

Fuck John Mackey and the rest of the delusional right-libertarian assclowns.

[Starry Messenger]

12. Margaret Thatcher is a personal hero of Mackey's?

Boy, did he pick a good scam with Whole Foods.

[SargeUNN]

14. English and Swedish healthcare

I had a person that lived in England for 30 years, and the last 10 in Mississippi on my show, I also had a woman from Sweden on that has lived there all her life a few weeks ago. It was interesting to hear their information and then the following day I had a right wing talk show host use my show to "tell what these people didn't tell". What he missed was that some of the very things he said wasn't told indeed was told, so being able to communicate with him during his show, I called his misinformation. He eventually tried to twist the numbers but when his numbers were proven wrong he would switch to another country until he hit a country he thought I didn't know the facts on. I let him go to see where he was headed and to my surprise, he ended up using "facts" he had about Germany that were from the same place that his incorrect "facts" of England and Sweden were taken from, to show why healthcare in Sweden and England was too expensive. He stated the tax rate in Sweden was 80% and my caller said more around 40%, he stated the tax rate in England was 75% but my caller stated it was under 50% and probably more like 40%. Lots of facts are out there that aren't facts and I found out talking directly to people who know first hand usually shows things do get twisted to fit what is wanted to be the person's view.