(I'm a bit agnostic about the Whole Foods boycott, but I think Mackey's certainly getting what he deserves. - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Crossposted at the Progressive Electorate
It's week two of the Whole Foods boycott, the Facebook boycott page has 28,157 members. It also now has a website called Whole Boycott Dot Com.
The boycott sprang up out of progressive resentment toward an article in the Wall Street Journal written by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. It's titled The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.
Mackey claims that the Rupert Murdoch owned WSJ editors wrote that title. It contains the annoying right wing slogan Obamacare. Which is an ironic term since the President has asked for Congress to write the bill, and to consider all ideas. We didn't call it the Bushraq War even though he didn't consider opposing ideas. |
I'm not going to go through all of what's wrong with Mackey's prescription for an Utopian world that doesn't and hasn't existed. But I will talk about his misdiagnosis of the current bill before Congress. Beyond calling it socialism he says,
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.
A public option is not an unfunded deficit, it's a public insurance option like Medicare except you buy in. The government would be selling health insurance. It will cost money at first, but cost containment in the long term will reduce the budget deficit.
Tables source: OMB
and reduce federal spending on health care as a % of GDP.
Mackey then goes on to compare the public insurance option to national healthcare systems like the UK and Canada. This is not what the proposed system will be, according to the CBO the role of private insurance will grow by 2016. 3 million more people will buy private insurance with a public option than without healthcare reform. And there's no plan for publicly owned hospitals, doctors, or pharmaceutical companies.
There's plenty more that I could say about Mackey's article, (some of the ideas are good and are already included in Congressional plans) but the point of the boycott is: If you're working against progressives, especially if it's in a Rupert Murdoch outlet like Fox News or the Wall Street Journal... we may not buy your goods anymore. This is especially true if you're advertising on the Glenn Beck show. This is the new age and companies are starting to see it. 33 Glenn Beck advertisers have taken their money off his show (but not off of Fox News). Now, at least 28,220 individuals have told Whole Foods their grocery cash will be spent at TJ's and Safeway, Farmer's markets and Co-ops.
UPDATE: The Austin Chronicle's Michael King rips apart Mackey's article in this op-ed response
My fav part...
Since the medical culture of 18th century America bled George Washington to death with leeches, it may not be the very best source for modern health care wisdom. Nevertheless, both the Declaration of Independence ("inalienable" right to "life") and the U.S. Constitution ("promote the general welfare") have historically been interpreted to recognize broad, general rights to the entire citizenry, not just the wealthy. The U.S., under its Constitution, is also signatory and bound to international agreements - such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - which explicitly grant rights to food, shelter, and medical care to all people. Certainly public resources are not unlimited, but Mackey's position amounts to a health care variation on, "The rich and poor alike are forbidden to sleep under the bridges of Paris" - or are equally free to seek urgent health care in emergency rooms. |
