Now might just be the best time to shop at Whole Foods

That is if you find the usual crowd of holier than thou, environment-angelical, yuppie-types slightly annoying to navigate through while you purchase your organic produce and cage-free eggs. The aisles might just be a little less crowded since the Wall Street Journal published CEO, John Mackey’s op-ed on health care reform on 8/12.

“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”

That was the statement that launched a thousand smart cars in the opposite direction of Mackey’s supermarket. Perhaps the most inflammatory thing Mackey proposed in his article was the idea that health care is not a right. Perhaps this is why the 5000+ facebook users joined the  “Boycott Whole Foods” group (no I am not linking to the group–find it on your own if you want to join).  Or perhaps it is because Mackey had the audacity to express any difference in opinion from the ‘great one’

“Whole Foods is NOT a company that cares for communities and they have built their brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. No more. My $ will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.”

Thus screeches the description of the group. All because of the op-ed that they believe exposes Mackey’s belief that “healthcare is a commodity that only the rich, like him, deserve”.

I wonder if most of the members of the group have actually read the article in which Mackey suggest 8 actions that the US government could take. These suggestions include equalizing tax laws so individual-owned health insurance could, like employer health insurance benefits, be fully tax deductible. He also suggests repealing laws that prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines, reforming medicare, and revising tax laws to allow people to give charitable donations that are tax-deductible for those without health insurance.

Yes, it his crazy ideas about letting consumers of medical care and insurance (including his own workers) retain the right to choose what kind of care and insurance they want that drove the angry boycotter to declare:

“Whole Foods has the right to cheat and lie and be as hateful and selfish as they wanna be.We also have the right to starve them of our $.”

Indeed you do. Personally, now this lot has decided to stop clogging up the aisles, I will selfishly enjoy shorter lines at checkout while I give a lot more of my $ to Whole Foods.