Whole Fools Market

It’s the first of the year and I’ve spent the last several weeks negotiating with insurance brokers for renewal rates for the company’s healthcare plan. You would be surprised how many brokers attempt to use President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act (I refuse to use the derogatory Obamacare) as an excuse to increase premium rates. I do agree that the President’s plan is not perfect in fact one of the failings of the plan is that it does not allow the federal government to reject increases so the insurance companies are free to raise rates as they please where they are not regulated by local or state agencies. The plan does however require the insurance companies to spend less on administrative costs and more on actual healthcare which should actually result in better coverage for us the consumer. Of course this will mean lower profits for those companies so if premiums are going up its most likely because insurance companies are banking on perceived Obamacare hysteria (ok just this one time) to pass their losses on to consumers by raising rates. This is not some new phenomenon and contrary to what opposition would have you believe President Obama did not create it as businesses have passed their costs on to the customer since the original troglodyte sold his first wheel.

So after weeks of negotiation we ended up with an overall increase of 5% over last year’s healthcare rates. After discussion with the owner of our company it was decided that he would not pass the increase on to the employees and their share of health insurance premiums would remain the same as last year. The owner of the company knows that this increased expense will result in lower profits for the company but he also knows that not taking a bigger cut and instead paying more for his employee’s share of healthcare will result in happier employees which can increase productivity. He also knows this will allow them more money to seed the nation’s struggling economy. All of this leads me to the CEO of Whole Foods Markets, John Mackey. Mr. Mackey has decided that president Obama’s healthcare plan is a form of fascism. Specifically, he feels that the requirement that employers provide healthcare for their employees is fascist. To be honest I’m getting a little sick of these conservatives, tea baggers and the GOP in general throwing out these terms of Socialist, Marxist, Nazi and even communist illegal alien terrorist when it comes to describing our president…it’s all simply code for the “n” word.

Boy talk about not knowing your customer. Who does Mr. Mackey think shops at Whole Foods? His customer is more likely liberal, educated, upscale and health conscious. His customer is more likely to agree with the policies and plans of the Obama administration than those of the GOP. You certainly won’t find many conservatives roaming the aisles of Whole Foods looking to kick start their vegetarian lifestyle and willing to pay $5 for a tomato even if it does come with a coupon good off your next package of tofu. So now backtracking Mackey says his “poor word choice” was due to his frustrations with the current administrations attempts to socialize healthcare in the United States. You know socialized like Medicare and Medicaid. He says he objects to the increased business costs associated with the law, although the law does not dictate how you share that cost with your employees. The goal of healthcare reform is to insure that healthcare providers no longer take advantage of their customers as well as make changes so those with lower incomes have the ability to get insurance. I find it funny that all these companies that make millions sometimes billions of dollars a year are so fervently opposed to having to pay more so their workers have healthcare. So basically being greedy and selfish is more important than the actual employee’s health. What’s so hard to understand about healthy, happy employees being more productive? I gotta say as a CEO, this guy is not very bright.

So let’s put the blame where it belongs. I’m certainly not anti-business or even anti-profit but greed and profit at all costs over people is never the solution and these companies who make this the norm when it comes to business while touting the need for moral values and a more traditional America are not helping to secure a stable economy. Maybe it’s silly of me to assume that these executives actually want to help to bring our economy back around but how about taking some of those corporate tax breaks and incentives you take advantage of annually and instead of lining your pockets, reinvesting them into your companies to help cover the costs of added healthcare? In the end these CEOs who complain about the Affordable Healthcare Act whether it’s at Papa John’s, Applebee’s or Whole Foods Markets never have to worry about affording healthcare personally. It’s something they take for granted a luxury not afforded to the working class.