I have to disagree with my esteemed colleague, ObamaNerd: Boycotting Whole Foods, while it may not shut the company down or save Obamacare, is the right thing to do.
First, a personal caveat: I love shopping at Whole Foods. For half an hour, I get to be a yuppie in paradise, wandering among aisles of gorgeous cheeses, pristine produce, prepared foods more beautiful than what I could ever make at home. (And, my God, the walk-in beer aisle!) Whoever designs their stores has done a tremendous job of speaking to upwardly mobile consumers (and upwardly mobile wannabes): Going to Whole Foods is like worshiping at the altar of aspiration.
That said, I’m never going back. Here’s why.
As has been widely reported, last week, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey came out loudly and publicly against health-care reform, arguing speciously for the “Whole Foods alternative to Obamacare.”
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.
From the rest of his editorial, it’s clear that what Mackey means by “individual empowerment” is that employees with the temerity to get sick should shoulder more of the burden of already sky-high health care costs. Employers, meanwhile, should naturally pay less. Item one on Mackey’s agenda:
Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time.
In Whole Foods’ case, that “high deductible,” Mackey goes on to note, is “about $2,500.” That’s the amount you have to pay, out of pocket, before your health care even kicks in. Starting pay at Whole Foods is about ten bucks an hour. At 30 hours a week, after taxes, that $2,500 deductible works out to about two and a half months of a Whole Foods “team member”‘s salary.
Maybe you’ll be lucky—maybe you won’t get sick, and you’ll get to “keep” that money the following year (assuming you stay at Whole Foods). Then again, maybe you won’t.
Maybe you’ll get cancer, or hit by a car, or any of the other million very expensive things that can go wrong in life. Then you’ll not only have to cough up $2,500—you may be unable to work. Under Mackeycare, unexpected illness or injury is a “lifestyle choice” (yeah, he actually says that), not something unforeseeable.
Oh, and whatever you do, don’t have a “preexisting condition” like diabetes, arthritis, or a previous cancer scare, because Mackey wants to make it even easier for insurance companies to deny benefits for any reason whatsoever:
• 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.
No more “government mandates” saying, for example, that insurers can’t deny you coverage on a whim, or because you smoke, or because they find out you were once treated for depression.
If you thought your “insurance” policy should be just that—an insurance against unforeseeable future health problems—think again: Under Mackeycare, not only are you going to pay more and your employer pay less, employees are going to be able to decide by a majority vote what your health care policy covers.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments.
And hey, if it turns out your coworkers don’t want to cover your expensive degenerative disease, too bad, man, because this is a democracy. Health care is a privilege, not a right, and it’s no one’s fault but your own if you were born with bad genes.
What about the uninsured? Mackey has a plan for them, too:
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.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Whoo, that’s a good one. “Make it easier” for people to give voluntarily—because it’s our complicated tax system that’s kicking 14,000 people off the insurance rolls every day! As Sadly, No! notes, if every one of the 140 million US taxpayers donated $10 a year into such a fund, “we could provide $28 worth of care each year to the 50 million people who are uninsured. … enough to go buy some aspirin, a pint of vodka, bandages and a knife so you can cut your tumor out your own damn self.”
But we haven’t even gotten to my favorite part yet. That’s the part about how if people weren’t so damn fat*, they wouldn’t need health insurance. Because “most of the diseases that kill us” are preventable “through healthy lifestyle choices.”
You read it here first: Buy lots of healthy shit at Whole Foods, live longer, go without insurance. Except, you know, if you live in a situation where those “healthy lifestyle” choices are unaffordable or don’t exist. Then you’re shit out of luck. Survival of the fittest, baby.
* See also: Making fat people pay more for health insurance. Because obesity, unlike every single other preventable disease, should be a punishable offense.
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Fuck. You just ruined my day. I will have to try my best to not shop at Whole Foods.
Joe Mackay says: “Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments.”
Well, duh. They want supplemental dollars because they already have basic care provided for them!
I already joined the boycott, but if I hadn’t, this article would have convinced me.
What’s that I hear? Is that a gauntlet thrown? It’s fucking on, LadyBird!
Let me first say, beneath all that brilliance and satire and snark of my post, is the belief that I think the boycott is a fine idear. I don’t think it’s a great idear, but don’t write it off completely either. I was simply blasting that there are 13 million supposed activists from last election who largely seem content reading blogs and BITCHING ABOUT SHIT now instead of actually DOING SHIT. A Facebook group of 11,000, while impressive, is not community organizing.
On a hopeful note, I will say today, the Facebook boycott posted a petition that folks can sign (http://uspoverty.change.org/actions/view/boycott_whole_foods). That’s a start. How about also deploying people to town halls to back up legislators that are getting fucking roasted out there? And I don’t mean blogging about it, but actually picking up your fucking cellphone and calling 5 friends to go to Inslee’s or Baird’s townhalls. You can’t bitch about Congressfolks backing away from the healthcare battle if you don’t give them adequate armor. It’s a numbers game. We need to outnumber the lunatic rightwingers who want to see this go down. We need to do what we did in the last election: get neighbors around a table talking about health care. We need to go door to door and sell the plan. We need better rapid response when the media tells one hysterical side of the story. We need to sit calmly and tell personal health care horror stories while the right wing froth at the mouth. We need to leverage technology and social media to enhance the message, not rely solely on it. We need to figure out how to really activate 13 million people from the last election or find a different group of 13 million to ignite. And we needed to do this 3 weeks ago before the House passed it’s shitty compromise version. Tick tock, tick tock.
We, on the left, seem totally caught off guard by the town hall reactions and the blowback on health care. Um, hello…did everyone totally forget 1994? The right wing isn’t deploying any new tactics. It’s the same fucking playbook! We should be out maneuvering this better.
In the end, the Whole Foods Boycott, which I do support, is about your feelings around your liberal dollars supporting a right wing jerkoff who has been widely exposed recently as out of touch with your liberal beliefs around health care reform. Great! About fucking time. He’s been anti-union for ages which I am guessing is also out of touch with your liberal feelings. And to boot: he’s seemingly unstable (try googling Wild Oats, blogs and John Mackey).
If his position on health care pisses you off, do something to pass health care IN ADDITION to hurting his pocketbook.
I don’t shop at Whole Foods because it seems like a giant rip off, but if they really are putting 1,800 bucks per year into an HSA for each employee, then the gap is $700/year (less than a month of salary) on a $2,500 deductible, not the 2.5 months you quote.
I don’t shop there anyhow cause they’re union busting scumbags.
Yep, they’ve lost me with this one. And I’ve been shopping there for years! Not another dime.
Mackie has a bad habit of opening his mouth.
Besides it isn’t as if we don’t have some good alternatives to Whole Foods here. PCC, Madison Market, Metropolitan Market, the Pike Place Market, any number of specialty stores, as well as a ton of neighborhood farmer’s markets.
The insurance Company’s add overhead and profit to the cost of health care just like John Mackey adds his profit and overhead to the cost of what you buy at WF. Health care of reform is useless without a public option that removes insurance co profit from what you pay for health care like shopping at PCC or the pike market less frills fancy wrappings lower prices taxes will not go up unless you make more then 300.000 a year, oh that puts JM in the tax category. Well that brings up the other straw man the anti reformers throw out, “Illegal aliens” they pick all that lushes produce that no one not exploitable will pick are not taxes with held from they’re pay’ how is that don’t they need ss numbers, cards?. Maybe they shouldn’t be illegal
If I’m doing the math correctly, the difference between the $1800 that Whole Foods will kick in and the $2500 deductible is $700. Works out to a starting point of about $53/month.
I, and most employees I know, would be delighted to spend $53 a month on health care. Generally HSAs are on some sort of match basis, but even at twice this cost it would be more affordable insurance than most people receive.
Also, would be interested to know about those who, “live in a situation where those “healthy lifestyle” choices are unaffordable or don’t exist.” Quadriplegics? Agoraphobics without treadmills who live where only Schwan’s will deliver?
In short, this was a pretty good ad for Whole Foods market.
So where will you shop instead, Ladybird?
Government provided healthcare is my birthright as an American, and Mackey is trying to rob me of it. I refuse to shop at Whole Paycheck until his is gone and until they support single payer.
At PCC and Madison Market, mostly (I try to make Whole Foods an occasional thing anyway), and at my CSA (Full Circle Farm)!
GOOD GRIEF! now where do I get my cat food for $3 a bag? any suggestions?
I wonder if PCC covers the first $1800 of out of pocket medical costs each year for employees…
My understanding was that they created Whole Foods because they saw a market for selling organic produce and over-priced healthy gourmet to well-heeled liberals – like myself, I suppose. The fact that it was specifically created by someone who donates to Rs to appeal to the liberal elite pissed me off. Combining that with the anti-union stance has been enough to keep me out of their stores. This just adds to my list of reasons not to go there – and the fact that they are super expensive.
I will happily continue to shop at locally-owned Metro Market and occasionally my neighborhood PCC and Safeway.
Ok, the CEO was wrong. But please think again before you sign-off of govt health care. The govt can’t even handle social security, how do you expect them to handle health care for everyone in the US??
Yes, the system is broken, but someone needs to find a better solution than what is on the table now!
What’s the point of boycotting? Aren’t people entitled to opinions? And isn’t contributing to a debate a good thing? Besides, what makes anyone think that the CEOs of the other grocery stores feel any differently than Mackey?
@16
Hmm funny you say that, my parents get their check direct deposited every month without fail. Same thing with Medicare part A&B, the claims get paid without fail or hassle. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the retiree health plan that covers ballance after Medicare and a few things Medicare doesn’t pick up.
just to lighten the debate…i thought y’all might want to take a look at this funny article i found on whole foods product names…worth a quick read:
http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/wholefoods/
Many of the comments in this blog show that there’s a lot confusion regarding HSAs. Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear without doing some homework. Do the analysis.
Whole foods buys $2500 deductible health plans for their employees and puts $1800 yearly in their HSAs. This gives the employees a company-paid insurance policy and most of the money to cover the deductible; and it gives them the choice on how to spend the money, which is now their’s. Unless you’re a masochist, who can complain about that. Let’s look at the numbers.
Suppose the employee has no medical expenses. He could use the HSA to pay for other medical items not covered by the insurance, such as dental, chiropractic, eyeglasses, and acupuncture, but he doesn’t. He rolls over the $1800 in his HSA and then collects another $1800 the second year. He now has $3600 in his HSA that he can use for any medical expenses he wants from then on out. Every year it’s another $1800 added.
Suppose the employee gets sick and has a $10,000 medical expense after the first year. He has to pay the first $2500 deductible plus 20% of the remaining $7500 for a total of $4000. He has $1800 in his HSA, so his actual out-of-pocket cost is $4000-$1800 or $2200. If the employee get sick the second year, his out-of-pocket cost, using his HSA after two years, is only $400. After 3 years of collecting into his HSA before he gets sick, he has $1400 left in the HSA after the illness.
Suppose that Whole Foods instead bought $200-deductible PPO plans for all employees with no HSAs. The out-of-pocket expenses for the employee would be the first $200 plus $10 copays for each office visit plus 20% of the remaining $9,800 for a total of $2160 + $20 for each office visit. With more than two office visits, the employee has paid more out-of-pocket with the PPO plan. If the employee remains healthy, he still has nothing to show for it.
The employee is much better off with the HSA than he is with a PPO plan, up to $1800 a year better off.
Why in the world would so many people boycott Whole Foods for offering a superior health plan? Could someone have put something in the Kool-Aid?
And, NO, I don’t work for Whole Foods.
Liberals used to be all about free speech but now they seem to be more about controlling speech.
Whole Foods appears to have a superior health plan and their employees seem to be happy working there. Why do so many of you want to undermine that? And they carry superior products. I’ll make sure to shop there more often, and look for the manager to offer my support too.
I don't shop at Whole Foods because it seems like a giant rip off, but if they really are putting 1,800 bucks per year into an HSA for each employee, then the gap is $700/year (less than a month of salary) on a $2,500 deductible, not the 2.5 months you quote.