Yeah, because we all know that businesses owned by left wingers will intentionally hurt the bottom line because it is the good thing to do. Geez. For the record, there is nothing wrong with starting a business with the intention of (gasp) making money. That is why you take the risk of starting a business. I am a little concerned with your anger lately. It isn't healthy for you.
Give me a break. Stated more eloquently than that: http://www.theagitator.com/2009/08/15/whole-foods-2/ I plan to do a lot more shopping at Whole Foods in the coming weeks. Mostly in response to the moronic boycott of the store now gaining momentum on the left. Let me see if I have the logic correct here: Whole Foods is consistently ranked among the most employee-friendly places to work in the service industry. In fact, Whole Foods treats employees a hell of a lot better than most liberal activist groups do. The company has strict environmental and humane animal treatment standards about how its food is grown and raised. The company buys local. The store near me is hosting a local tasting event for its regional vendors. Last I saw, the company’s lowest wage earners make $13.15 per hour. They also get to vote on what type of health insurance they want. And they all get health insurance. The company is also constantly raising money for various philanthropic causes. When I was there today, they were taking donations for a school lunch program. In short, Whole Foods is everything leftists talk about when they talk about “corporate responsibility.” And yet lefties want to boycott the company because CEO John Mackey wrote an op-ed that suggests alternatives to single payer health care? It wasn’t even a nasty or mean-spirited op-ed. Mackey didn’t spread misinformation about death panels, call anyone names, or use ad hominem attacks. He put forth actual ideas and policy proposals, many of them tested and proven during his own experience running a large company. Is this really the state of debate on the left, now? “Agree with us, or we’ll crush you?” These people don’t want a dicussion. They don’t want to hear ideas. They want you to shut up and do what they say, or they’re going to punish you.
Okay...I know government should not have mandated that lenders provide home loans to low income or minority people usually left out the process, to have "fairness" and no discrimation. It just encouraged more risk into the process... But who really's gonna FULLY trust a start up insurer under no government restriction with their health? Individual customer preferences between customer and insurer? Yeah like we'll really tell the company what they should be paying for. It'd end up you pay 1 trusty company for back, another for knees and joints, another for lungs, another insurer for heart...another for cancer. Like the FDA, I kinda don't mind the goverment regulations on this issue....
Private insurance is out for profit. They cut cost, but they don't change their rates. What does Britain's system have to do with this?
Refman, if you would wae up a bit you might have a little anger over an economic and health care system that forces so many people into bankuptcy.
I actually found it kind of embarrassing - if I were a Whole Foods shareholder - I'd be upset that my CEO was making a fool of himself by making that generalized claim, when the experience in his own backyard shows otherwise. Lazy and dumb. For the record, even though this guy's an idiot I will still shop at Whole Foods here which manages to be both better and cheaper than the other grocery stores in manhattan and has the best beer selection. Maybe I'll brave the lines at Trader Joes though.
Some interesting suggestions in the piece but I don't think they will do much to resolve our overally health care problem. One part that I particularly found interesting is that while he criticizes wait times in the UK and Canada he goes on to talk about how health care isn't a right. It sounds like he is supporting the idea that health care should be rationed so why worry about wait times then when there is guarentee that you should get health care promptly or even at all.
I am very skeptical about that as the savings generated by the bill are nebulous and over optimistic at best.
A boycott over this op-ed seems kind of foolish. The only reason I'm not going to shop at Whole Foods is there high prices. While Whole Foods might be relatively cheap in Manhattan that's not the case here especially when you can get organic produce at the farmers markets.
Just because I have misgivings regarding the current proposal does not mean that I do not want to fix the problem. If the goal here were really to insure the uninsured, you could simply extend Medicaid to the unemployed, underemployed and self employed. That isn't what is being done. As for the economic system, there have always been the rich, the poor and the middle class. There have been since the dawn of economics. You could go to the system where the government owns everything, but then there always seems to be two classes, the extremely rich and the extremely poor. I'll pass. Thanks though. I like the option of having a middle class existence. I liked the option to take the risk and start my own business. It didn't work out for me, but at least I got to try.
They put things into the legislation so that when it is analyzed for its effects on the deficit the final results come out at even. This has already happened. The private industry has not reduced these costs on its own without government interference, but they have already negotiated some cost reduction to be included in the health care reforms. It's been done.
malpractice caps for premiums or awards? if the latter, has the cost of malpractice insurance dropped?
They have Trader Joes in Manhattan now? I find their beer selection superior to Whole Foods, at least the ones out here. Also they have cheaper prices, and better wine selections too. I can't vouch for your particular Trader Joes and I understand about the lines. When I lived in Manhattan, one of the only places to get good produce was at Fairway, but the lines made me hate that place. I swore to never shop there again.
They may be overly optimistic. I don't doubt that. Until the final bill gets hammered out and we see what's actually in it we don't know. But either way the bill will be deficit neutral whether it comes from savings or elsewhere. So some of the outrage over it is manufactured, or misplaced. When Bush's prescription drug bill came out, they passed it, and didn't even attempt to have a plan to pay for it. There were no crazy town halls about it. Now, they are actually attempting to pay for what they are passing, and people are freaking out. If all of their figures are wrong, and they only pay 3/4 of it, that's still a far cry better than the bill passed by the Bush administration, or a ton of other bills that get brought up.
More on the wonders of private insurance vs that horrible Medicare... http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/the-view-from-your-sick-bed-3.html#more Despite numerous attempts at losing weight, my father has been obese for most of his adult life. 10 years ago he was working at as a respiratory therapist at a prominent southern California hospital. He had very good health insurance. One of the many specialists he was seeing at the time recommended that he have gastric bypass surgery. Among my father´s obesity related illnesses were type II diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthma, sleep apnea, more than a few gastrointestinal disorders, two balky knees and several herneated discs in his lower back. All of my father´s specialists agreed that these conditions would be significantly improved if my father lost 100 pounds, and the cost of the gastric bypass surgery paled in comparison to the amount the healthcare industry would spend treating his obesity-related illnesses over the course of his remaining years. At first, my father was skeptical about having such a drastic procedure, but when he looked at it objectively, he decided that a drastic change was just what he needed to improve his failing health. Despite letters of support from several doctors of various specialties, my father´s insurer was extremely reluctant to approve the procedure. But my father was persistent. He spent nearly a year filling out forms, filing appeals and visiting doctors and psychiatrists, jumping through every insurance company hoop. Then, just when there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, my father´s employer laid him off along with half of his department. As soon as my father´s insurer learned that he was going to be extending his insurance via COBRA, they began completely stonewalling him about his surgery, because they knew that in a year he would be some other company´s problem. At my father´s next job, his insurance was not nearly as good and the thought of starting the bureacratic process over again with an even slimmer chance of success was too much for my father to bear, so he dropped the idea of having the surgery. Then, three years ago, my father´s various ailments, primarily his knee and back problems, caused him to file for permanent disability. He moved into subsidized housing, living on a $1000 a month from the Social Security Administration. It was at that point that my father decided to get serious again about reducing his weight, and he began seriously reconsidering gastric bypass. He had health insurance through the California state MediCal program, but several years ago the state farmed out MediCal to private insurers, so what my dad actually had was very marginal insurance through an HMO. Despite how futile it seemed, my father tried again with the HMO to get the gastric bypass procedure approved, but there were several barriers the insurance company had erected that made it almost impossible to get the procedure approved. One such requirement was that my father get an in-depth psychiatric examination that was not covered by the insurance. While it did not seem unreasonable for them to require my father to see a psychiatrist, it did seem ridiculous that the HMO refused to cover the cost of the visit which was over $700. You can imagine how difficult such an expense can be to someone living on $1000 a month. Just when all seemed lost, something unbelievable happened. My father received a social security cost of living increase of $57 a month. Shortly thereafter, he received a letter from MediCal informing him that his insurance coverage had been terminated because he now made too much money to qualify for MediCal, but since he no longer qualified for MediCal, he was now entitled to receive Medicare coverage. Within 6 weeks of my father getting on Medicare, his gastric bypass procedure was approved and a date was scheduled. Medicare had identical requirements as the HMO regarding the procedure. The difference was that, unlike the HMO, Medicare paid for everything, including the psychiatric examination. My father had the procedure on July 3rd of last year. Since then, he has lost 120 pounds. He no longer suffers from sleep apnea. His hypertension, cholesterol and asthma medication doses have been reduced by more than half. He shows no signs of having type II diabetes, and his knee and back pain has improved so significantly that doctors are reconsidering the need for him to undergo knee reconstruction and back surgery, and my dad is planning to go back to work at the end of the year. He is currently working part time so that he can save up enough money to pay the back dues on his respiratory therapy license and return to work. My father´s obesity related illnesses and time spent on disability have cost taxpayers an incredible amount of money. All of this could have been avoided if my father´s insurer 10 years ago would have been required to provide him the care he needed. But private insurers realize that the average patient only stays with them for 2-3 years, so they aren´t interested in reducing long-term healthcare costs because it´s the next company that sees the benefits. Hopefully, we can pass real healthcare reform that puts reducing healthcare costs above maximizing insurance company profits.
Are you saying that the state wouldn't approve it if the insurance companies lowered their rates because of tort reform? Tort reform has passed and it never brought the rates down. There isn't much to debate about that.
