Whole Foods Fight

John Mackey struck a raw nerve when he decided to wade into the health care debate by using his status as a billionaire CEO (of Whole Foods) to broadcast his views via an Op-Ed piece in the The Wall Street Journal on August 11th 2009. He opened his piece with a quote from Margaret Thatcher implying socialism is parasitism. This lead-in set the tone for his views on health care. Among the opinions he aired in his Op-Ed piece was his assertion that no one has a right to health care any more than they have a right to food or shelter. That’s easy for a multi-billionaire who charges three dollars for a tomato to say.

He also made swipes at single payer systems such as the ones in Canada and other countries where people have a higher life expectancy. United States, in fact, is far behind countries like Canada, Macau (a Chinese province), Bosnia, France, Germany, and many other countries in life expectancy. We edged just ahead of Albania, despite the terrible decline in life expectancy that followed the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. According to the World Factbook of the CIA for 2009 the U.S. is 50th in terms of life expectancy; although, in terms of expenditures on health care we rank number one: A fatal sign of the hazardous health policy followed in the United States.

Since the Bush Jr. era, circa 2004, there’s been a stagnation or decline in life expectancy; especially for women in the U.S. (women 19% , men 4% decline), as well as those living in some southern states, Appalachia and parts of Maine according to the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington. Mackey put in a plug for private Health Care Savings Accounts; shades of the Bush scheme for private retirement accounts which shattered many people’s retirement plans and shrunk their living standard. As a CEO, Mackey is anti-union as well. He calls for deregulation of laws keeping insurance companies from competing across state lines and is in favor of enacting tort reform to lessen malpractice suits, which would protect doctors from malpractice suits and insurance companies from pay-outs. As it is, a very small percentage of malpractice cases are ever tried, and those that are, are seldom settled in favor of the plaintiffs. Finally, he advises us to rely on charity for our medical needs.

Mackey seemed taken by surprise at the sour reaction his opinions received. About a week later protesters were outside the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin Texas. Then there were reports of demonstrations and protest happening sporadically around the country: New York, Washington D.C., Maryland and Massachusetts; including Cambridge and Framingham.

The protest in Cambridge was organized by Jake Williams of Jobs with Justice. Many union members from various unions as well as religious and community groups lined both sides of the street Friday the 21st holding up signs outside Whole Foods market on Prospect in Cambridge. Also in attendance were members of NOW, Code Pink, Green Peace and the Green Party. They held up signs like “Insurance Companies=Death Panels,” “Health Care for People. Not for Profit,” “Whole Foods=Right-Wing Organic Nuts,” “Health Care is a Human Right” indicating their disapproval of the present health care set-up as well as Mackey’s viewpoint. People have also been calling for a boycott of Whole Foods. Why not cut down, or cut out, our trips to that super expensive purveyor of Milton Freidman’s, “free-market” Libertarian theories and hyper-profit groceries?

Besty Warrior is with the Women and Media Group