I am Done with Whole Foods

This is a response I left on the Whole Foods Market Forum in response to WFM CEO John Mackey's Wall Street Journal attack on the Obama Health Care Plan.


As a regular customer of Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) after reading John Mackeys attack on President Obama's health care proposal, I am done with Whole Foods. I used to go to our local Pasadena WF market as often as I could afford it. But no more. It will be a long, long time before I ever set foot in a WF market ever again and I will be urging my friends to consider doing the same.


Mackey opens his attack with a quote from Margaret Thatcher (Ronnie Reagan's good buddy) "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." In other words, Mackey begins by equating good health care reform with socialism, and his piece goes downhill from there. He advocates weak sister reforms like health savings accounts and tax reform, tort reform and making health costs transparent. That last one is a laugh, as if knowing more about costs will allow me to shop around for the best price on an appendectomy or heart transplant.

Mackey may be a good CEO for a store chain, but he is a lousy public policy analyst. He is just one more right-winger in love with unfettered free market theory. And that has worked well for Wall Street, not so much for the rest of us.

It is clear that the big health insurance companies make billions in profits simply by denying their policy holders health care. It is clear that people in other civilized countries enjoy far better health care than we do in the U.S. For proof of that, check the U.N. World Health Organization.

Someone should tie Mackey to a chair and make him watch Michael Moore's Sicko. He might learn something. In the meantime, bye bye Whole Foods. I'll do my shopping elsewhere