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August 12, 2009 By Fausta

Healthcare reform that would work: The Whole Foods Alternative

Whole Foods-Merger

Competition, tort reform, high-deductible catastrophic coverage, tax incentives and individual health accounts among the factors that effectively and efficiently would improve health care, in today’s WSJ by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. Mackey stresses individual responsibility:

Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.
Mackey proposes,

  • Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
  • Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.
  • Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
  • Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.
  • Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
  • Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.
  • Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
  • 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.

Go read the rest of the article: What he proposes will work.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, health care, healthcare Tagged With: Fausta's blog, ObamaCare, Whole Foods

Comments

  1. Gulliver says

    August 12, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    That will work? where in China?
    No more Whole Food shopping for me

  2. Helen says

    August 12, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    Hey guys, this is OT but related. I have just been told that the BBC and the NHS (both using OUR money) have launched a campaign and have a trending topic to blast pro-NHS messages to Americans. Now I am sure it will not matter in the slightest but it is as well to be aware of it.

  3. 11B40 says

    August 12, 2009 at 9:24 pm

    Greetings:

    Back when I was studying Public Administration, there was a concept that all my professors thought important. It was referred to as “fundamentalism versus incrementalism”. “Fundamentalism” described a situation like when the FDR administration first established the Social Security system. “Incrementalism” would cover the subsequent tax rate and benefit adjustments to the system.

    I think that it’s unfortunate that the Obama administration and the Congress have neglected this part of the issue. Neither group seems interested in or capable of standing back and saying, “If we had no healthcare insurance system at all, what would we want it to do or not to do.

    Lately. I have been thinking about a car insurance analogy. These days most employees drive automobiles but very few employers provide car insurance for them. Our automobiles, if looked at as assets, have two kinds of potential liabilities, operational (crashes) and mechanical. Car insurance protects the owner from operational liabilities. I’m not aware or any car insurance for mechanical difficulties, preventive or otherwise which most owners seem to be able to handle financially. Lastly, car insurance is legally mandatory in most states.

    When I bought my first car, my father thought I bought too much insurance coverage for it. What he told me was that insurance is to protect your assets and I didn’t, at that time, have many assets to protect. I think that there’s a bit of a healthcare insurance lottery mentality alive in our land. The obvious “max-max” case is that someone else pays for your “first dollar coverage” insurance.
    The “min-min” case would be someone who, while able to afford coverage foregoes it incurs medical expenses that are transferred to the society at large.
    To me, both these examples are irresponsible.

    I haven’t come up with a solves-all-the-problems solutions at this point. My major concern is that nobody seems interested in first coming up with a “map” of where the system is now and then one of where we want to end up with a “road-map” for the in between.

  4. John says

    August 13, 2009 at 8:39 am

    Why not have employers get out of providing company health insurance. Just give the money to the employees and let the employees buy their own coverage. Also, have the tax code make it tax deductible. This moves the responsibility to the employee.

    People need to begin to ask what things cost. There was a call in health discussion on C-Span. A fella called in and told of the time he ran a rusty nail in his hand. He needed a simple tetanus shot. He went to the hospital. Several asked him how he was doing. Later he received the bill…$900. He was upset at the bill…but the real issue is why didn’t he ask up front what the cost was???

    If I had the opportunity to go to one of the town meetings and the government run health care system was being promoted the question I would ask is..”would you please break out your check book, make it payable to me, sign it and then hand it to me…just leave the amount blank”. I would love to ask Sen. Spector that question.

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