A Real Health-Care Alternative

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey offers an alternative to the President's plan - one that operates efficiently (and thus cheaply) and that his employees love.

The President keeps saying that opponents of his plan just want to keep the status quo, and implies that their motives are primarily selfish. Is that true? The plan Mackey presents above would be radical change, and most conservatives (and liberals - given its overwhelming popularity with his employees) would support it wholeheartedly.

Isn't it possible for people to want a system to change, and simply oppose President Obama's particular brand of change? And wouldn't the debate be more constructive if the President were quicker to consider alternatives on their merits rather than to smear and marginalize those with whom he disagrees?

Anyway, I won't take the time here to explore each of Mackey's proposals, but I highly recommend reading the full article. Do you think Mackey's suggestions would be beneficial? And, more importantly, are they practical?

In addition to his specific recommendations, Mackey also makes some very down-to-earth observations about the right to health-care generally. Here are some highlights:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

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
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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. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear — no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K. — or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

The fact that the last sentence above is no longer self-evident shows just how far adrift our nation has gone.