RSM on Mackey

Robert McCain supports John Mackey's free market ideas on healthcare, but he rips Mackey for being in the organic food business, here:

Considering my deep and enduring antipathy toward “Crunchy Cons,” I am more than willing to believe that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is a menace to society.

...and here...

What red-blooded American can resist the temptation to hate a man who made his fortune marketing stuff like organic vegetables, free-range chicken and all manner of whole-grain products appealing to the colonic-health obsessions of aging Baby Boomers?

I agree with RSM's larger point, the stupidity of the boycotters and the superiority of the market to supply goods and services. However, I think the above statements and the one he concludes with, "I stand ready to hate Mackey as a peddler of holistic hokum", are signs that he misses what should be a fairly large point to anyone who believes in the American free market system. Mackey found a market among aging hippies who worship their taste-buds and colons, and are easily manipulated by guilt about the environment, then he subsequently discovered ingenius ways to separate them from their money. I think that is cool. Shouldn't he be commended for coming up with this idea whether he himself buys it or not? Otherwise you could spend your life criticizing those who "sell the sizzle" not the steak; they are not in short supply in our society.

I know McCain would probably hate my saying this, but I think the harshness of his words reveal that he has fallen prey to the same narcissistic tendency as Dreher. He's placing his tastes over his belief in the freedom of the market. And if he truly believes there is something immoral about selling these organic products, how is that different than tilting at the Walmart windmill for selling plastic Chinese trash?

Thank You, John Mackey

Excellent common sense approach to really reform the health insurance industry from the founder and CEO of Whole Foods Inc, John Mackey. Excerpt, with my favorite item in bold italics:

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Repealing the government mandates would be great. We could have cafeteria-style coverage that doesn't include abortions, psychological counseling, gender reassignment surgery--whatever you wanted to leave out. I don't have cable because I can't buy it this way, and by its nature, one-size fits all never benefits the consumer.