John Mackey is the CEO of Whole Foods.
John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare – WSJ.com
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:
Make sure you read toward the end to see what the Whole Foods Canada employees ask for…
Update: the reality based community took this very well…
I’m with him on #1, #2, and #3. The others are too vague or don’t actually offer anyone any savings.
So….those with catastrophic or chronic medical conditions which no private insurance will ever cover are relegated to charity, to be tax-deductible of course. I have cancer and for now am insured through my husband’s employer, but for how long? My husband is quite literally enslaved to his job. He can’t even dream of starting his own company because of our insurance problems. So much for freedom in this country. And by the way, prior to my diagnosis, I was in top shape and quite a good athlete. Not all medical problems are due to neglect. Should my husband be laid off, we will practically lose every bit of savings we have but, hey, medical care isn’t a right, you know. I guess maybe the wisest thing would be this: to not have been treated at all and just died. I grew up in Germany and they have a great system. I envy them.
So…you have insurance problems, therefore America’s not a free country? A little hyperbolic, no?
I’d love to see Community Rating, which would ban pre-existing condition denials, but don’t anybody kid yourselves: without the ability to predict risk, that makes health insurance costs go up, unless you also make mandates and force the very healthy 20 somethings to subsidize those with pre-existing conditions more directly.
I’d also like to see insurance divorced from employment (as would business, across the board); doing that would require a LOT more retail of insurance, and letting people choose what they want covered (cancer care) and don’t want (chiropractic, hair transplants, whatever) will take getting State insurance departments at least on the sidelines.
You may know by now that the liberals are having a fit over the editorial and threatening a boycott of Whole Foods stores. Personally, I think John has a better idea. Not perfect, but pretty good.
THIS is the direction to move toward: personal initiative on the part of employers and employees and NOT becoming puppets of the government, which is the very least favorable way to go. The word “favorable should not even be used in the same sentence with “government”………………..