Whole Foods Boycott?
I just heard about this. Apparently some folks are up in arms about an Op-Ed piece in the Wall St. Journal by the CEO of Whole Foods. Here’s the piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
I’m not quite sure what everyone’s so up in arms about. Perhaps it’s this paragraph:
“Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America.”
Otherwise I think most of what Mr. Mackey says makes sense. I don’t agree with all his proposals, and think some should be added (the flip side of tort reform is the AMA doing a much better job of denying licenses to incompetent doctors), but I can’t imagine what’s in this op-ed piece that’s irritated so many folks. Certainly getting the states out of the health insurance regulating business would be a huge step in the right direction.
The current system is a gigantic disaster, not least because of the number of people who are uninsured. I’m for whatever proposal can get through Congress, as long as it cuts the number of uninsured by as large an amount as possible. Do I think any of the bills currently being floated are any good? Not particularly. But at least they’re a start. To paraphrase LBJ when he was answering liberal complaints in the ’50s about the inadequacy of the civil rights bills he was pushing through Congress, “You have to start somewhere.”
