Whole Foods CEO: Government Shouldn't ‘Take Over Entire Health Care System'

[SHRED]

And spewing his politics is good for his business how?

What an idiot.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey doesn’t want the government running America's health care system.

Mackey joined Fox News’ Stuart Varney on Wednesday to discuss the rollout of President Obama’s health care overhaul, better known as Obamacare. Mackey said that while he considered the law's controversial exchanges -- the online marketplaces where Americans can shop for insurance -- a “good idea,” he opposed the basic idea of government overly involving itself in the health care sector.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/whole-foods-health-care-s_n_4469314.html?utm_hp_ref=business

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Who died

And made him the king of everything?

[malthaussen]

2. Being rich is an entitlement to spew one's mouth-drool over everyone else

Which is why so many "celebrities" can't keep their damned yaps shut.

-- Mal

[HughBeaumont]

3. Hey, John, I don't want corporate America running government. But they do.

Corporate America also runs the health insurance scam.

[jsr]

12. +1

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. Dear CEO Guy ...

It isn't ... Now, where do you keep the pickles?

[TransitJohn]

5. The cognitive dissonance on the right about the PPACA is fucking stunning

Coorcerced participation in a for-profit insurance racket is "government takeover" how? What the fuck right wing looney tunes? I fucking wish we had socialism or government takeover into a single payer system.

[SHRED]

6. I wish we did too

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Willful ignorance for some but not this a$$hole.

Coerced participation in a for-profit insurance racket is 'government takeover' how?


I fucking wish we had socialism or government takeover into a single payer system.

[Johonny]

8. I don’t think there’s good reason for the government to take over the entire health care system

I wish he'd explain how many have to be left out of the system before it turns into a good reason. You get the feeling the answer has to be until he is left out then screw it everything is fine. This is basically a long I got mine rant from someone that doesn't want to see the problem so many of his "fellow" Americans face every day. His opinion has no value because he fails to even acknowledge the problem.

[jmowreader]

9. That's because the private sector does so well with no government intrusion

Remember, kids: the evil government is why sausage no longer consists of floor sweepings, rotten meat and borax.

[marmar]

10. Honestly Johnny, I wish it would. That's hardly what the ACA does.

[hobbit709]

11. He was an ass 40 years ago when he worked at Saferway-long before Whole Paycheck

And he hasn't gotten any better.

[spanone]

13. i haven't heard one insurance exec bitching about the affordable care act, have you mr mackey?

that's because this is NOT the government taking over the entire health care system

[sibelian]

14. Their business model depends partially on customers who distrust scientifically based medicine

which distrust in itself is supported primarily by corporate interests that need to be able to present medicine as a series of choices between agencies rather than an established process that is already understood and applicable equally to all.

It's been clear to me for some time as a beneficiary of publically funded medicine in the UK that the variety of perspectives on medicine and medical expertise in America is considerably greater that in my country, which I find very weird. Much of medicine in the US seems viewed by the US populace to be somehow a mysteriously expert practice rather than an understandably expert practice.

One of the effects of having a publically funded system is that the appropriate solution to a medical problem will be the one chosen, not the one that a medical practitioner can convince is the "best" by making it the most expensive.

Remove (some of) the choice by grounding the system, i.e. taking the profit motive out of it, and you've removed a vital component in the maintenance of the image of medical solutions in America, which is as something expensive and more in the province of opinion than fact.

All those American medical shows with doctors arguing about what to do.... A show like that wouldn't work in the UK. Here they're expected to bloody well know what they're doing.

Why go to an expensive health food store if free or even cheap medicine can educate you to take care of yourself better? Much of the UK NHS's budget is spent on education of the public.

I strongly suspect that a lot of the health nuts (I consider myself pretty health nutty, which I have an ambivalent attitude towards, I vastly prefer to eat healthily but am confused by the attitudes of some health nuts towards food) are driven to their lifestyles subconsciously through the cost of medicine.

I think that this is a smart guy making a smart move. I also think he's a total fucking tool.

[SHRED]

15. When retail businesses mix politics with business...

...how can they help but lose sales?

[rucky]

16. I don't think he thought that through as thoroughly as you did

that's just a bonus for him being rich dumb and lucky

[sibelian]

18. No? Perhaps you're right.

I could also be wrong about the public understanding of medicine as a whole in the US. I don't live there, after all...

[rucky]

19. You're right about that, but this CEO has a track record

of insulting his customers and employees with his views.

[otohara]

17. Medicare is Better Than WF Insurance

and I suspect the ACA with it's high deductibles is about the same as WF.

[ryan_cats]

20. Wierd

Weird, I've always liked Whole Foods. Their persona leads people to think they are pro-environment, anti-corporate and those types of things but at the top, there is typical CEO behavior apparently.
It won't stop me from shopping there, though.

[Egnever]

23. This is not the first time this clown has done this.

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2009/08/the-whole-foods-controversy-in-15-minutes/27248/

[Egnever]

22. This clown just cant stop spouting his winger talking points can he?

Amazing that he doesnt learn. This is not the first time.

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2009/08/the-whole-foods-controversy-in-15-minutes/27248/