Whole Foods (CEO) is Anti-health care reform

[villager]

Whole Foods is anti Health Care reform
by Aptoklas

<snip>

Whole Foods does not care about the members of its communities who need true healthcare reform. It comes as a shock that John Mackey, Co-Founder and CEO of Whole Foods has an OpEd in todays Wall Street Journal titled: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

http://online.wsj.com/...

He offers talking points straight out of the GOP and Health Insurance lobby play book such as:

"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..."

He in essence recommends high deductible policies i.e. $2,500-5,000 with HSA's. He also advocates the end of consumers having the rights to file lawsuits.

He also states that state laws should be curtailed that mandate the type of coverage Insurance Companies should be required to offer. Pray tell what mandates is he referring to? Cancer treatments, mammograms?

Whole Foods is known to be anti union. Their Founder has now thrown down the gauntlet and shown them to be anti progressive and frankly a threat to millions who do not have health insurance and those who could barely afford it.

<snip>

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/12/765613/-Whole-Foods-is-anti-Health-Care-reform

[global1]

1. Is He Going To Advertise On Glen Beck's Show Too?.......nt

[villager]

2. I guess the "support" question might be: Will DUers still shop there?

n/t

[abumbyanyothername]

3. I don't shop there to begin with

I don't buy products of any sort, just produce.

I shop at the Palisades farmers' market and occasionally at CostCo. Melons in the summer, oranges in the winter, pineapple, grapes, mangoes, lettuce, etc.

I wonder, however, if we could get a demonstration going in front of their huge store on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice (CA). That might get his attention.

[trumad]

4. Massively overpriced food...

simply because of the name.

[wackadoodle]

26. You don't shop there. I know this for a fact. You have walked in once.

I am low-income and buy their house brand + bulk stuff. I have gone into the regular stores. They charge more with less quality!

Having said that, I knew long ago that WF didn't have good labor practices. I tried to apply there several times and the manager wanted to know if I could 'hustle,' all the while wanting to charge minimum wage! Meanwhile, the cashiers were wearing these buttons saying WF was voted one of the best places to work! I couldn't figure out WTF was going on! Still can't...

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

53. Me neither, but I know now that I never will.

[customerserviceguy]

5. I've read the article

and while I do not agree with it completely, it makes some really good points. HSAs are a way of making sure healthcare consumers really think hard about what they need versus what they 'want', and the idea that there should be transparency in what things cost is a great idea, too.

[abumbyanyothername]

10. Transparency won't work with medical

because when we need the services we aren't in a position to bargain.

Medical is the classic example of a service that should be provided outside the profit driven economy.

[customerserviceguy]

17. Not in the emergency room

but we would be able to bargain when it comes to routine physicals and tests. I can call a dozen pharmacies in my area to buy my Protonix, but if I'm only going to lay out a $20 copay no matter what, what incentive do I have to bother? Same thing goes for my routine lab tests that accompany my doctor's monitoring of my cholesterol.

I'd bet money that most doctors I would deal with would be happy as hell to just simply take a cash payment from me and not have to screw with all the paperwork my insurance company requires. That insurance company has already busted them down to very little, anyway.

Nothing else in this world works the way insured medical expenses do, where the person with insurance has little incentive to get off their ass and search around for who will do the job at the lowest out-of-pocket cost, the way everything else is priced. No wonder those who are comfortable with the way things are don't want any change whatsoever.

[abumbyanyothername]

30. Single payer is a better response to this problem

and more generous med school admissions.

The single payer would know what every other provider is charging for the service and drive all business to the lowest cost alternative.

Your "informed consumer" could never have the kind of information that a single payer would have.

[customerserviceguy]

33. Single payer is a great response to this problem

but it needs to be combined with market forces.

If you're smart enough, you can go to college. If you pick a bad school, you know you will be saddled with student loan debts that you won't be able to pay back, because you can't get a job as soon as someone sees where you went to school on your resume. If you pick an expensive school, you had better hope that it will look good on that job application, as well. Your best bet is to pick a school that you can afford with the gloss that it puts on your reputation, academically. In other words, look for the most bang for the buck.

I can envision a sliding scale, where everybody pays some sort of payment for services received, with efficient single-payer picking up the amount after the deductable has been satisfied. The minimum wage earner would have a low threshold of what she has to pay, whereas the well-paid CEO has a much larger amount that he has to pay out of his pocket before single-payer kicks in.

It's just simple arithmetic, it's not that difficult to administer.

[abumbyanyothername]

34. Well,

since I am not a big believer in any of the "market forces" propoganda, period, maybe I'll just drop this one.

I will guarantee you that for everyone running willy-nilly to the Dr. because it's free, you'll have one like me who has to die (my chart said, "sudden cardiac death syndrome") before they can get me to utilize medical services.

I don't think price motivates people one way or the other and all the talk to the contrary is just a big lie.

But . . . I digress, and any threads I try to start to discuss these points simply sink.

[customerserviceguy]

38. I do appreciate

your being willing to debate on the merits of the argument, rather than just attacking the CEO of Whole Foods. Yes, he might be a scumbag (I never met him or worked for him) but I feel that simple ad hominem attacks on him are a poor substitute for debating the ideas contained in his thesis.

[Celebration]

40. As Obama states

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

There is no such thing as a perfect system. The laws of supply and demand are completely broken with health care, probably far too broken to fix with hsa accounts, etc.

[customerserviceguy]

43. The question is

when we come out of this, I know we won't have the perfect, but will we have anything we can even remotely call the good?

I remember when Social Security was reformed back in the early 1980's, there was a commission formed that explored each and every idea, and put together a comprehensive bill that Congress had a chance to vote up or down on, and I wonder why we really should not do the same with healthcare.

[Celebration]

54. it is the issue of the day, but not really my issue

I love living, but we all have to die, and a lot of us will suffer when we die. Health care reform won't change most of that anyway. In the scheme of things none of us are long for existence on this plane.

Since I am not a huge believer in our health care system, I am keeping most of this debate on the back burner, from a personal standpoint. I can see myself taking Obama's position at his age. I consider myself way more savvy now. Still, I thank heaven and earth that he won the election.

Still, at this point, I say look to other models. The other models include every other developed country in the world, sans Turkey and Mexico. Go with the best we have to offer, as imperfect as it is.

Beyond that, everyone is responsible for his/her own health. If I could pay for an "accident only" health care plan, it would be fine with me. If I am my brother's keeper, then reinvent food stamps to include only fresh produce, and penalize potato chips, etc. As far as this goes, Michelle Obama has the right idea with her garden.

[Go2Peace]

55. It's impossible to price shop healthcare well. It's rigged

I still pay a lot of attention to price. But even when I did not have insurance and used to call up multiple pharmacies the price difference was almost completely negligable.

And try to shop Dr. services.. almost impossible... They will never give you a figure until you are out the door.

I even once went to a local clinic that was giving low cost vaccinations, no income requirement. They totally raped me after the fact by sending me bills for more cost asking me to pay more that what vaccines normally cost, claiming when I paid in full I had not paid for all the services.

Health providers do not at all reflect market reality and I don't think they ever will. The only way to drive down costs would be to provide unlimited free scholarships to be an MD. Now I get get behind that as a way to drop costs, but you know Dr.s would never let that happen. They would have to live like the rest of us.

[customerserviceguy]

64. It is difficult, even impossible to shop, I will agree

but shouldn't that be part of health care reform?

A year ago, I was working at a job where we sold surgical endoscopes and their supplies, we had a whole department of people whose job it was to figure out exactly how much each different customer was to pay for the same equipment. The whole process was so fucking Byzantine! If they had simple charged one price for every individual item, then gave a rebated amount at the end of the fiscal year, it would have eliminated tons of bureaucracy.

Medical services should not be like airline seats, where we all pay different prices to get the the same damned place.

[Luminous Animal]

60. I have breast cancer.

I can only be insured through my employer. I have 8 doctor appointments and 8 tests a year. And I have daily medication. Please help me bargain 16 times a year to find a doctor and a lab that are willing to bargain. Because, simply, I do not have the time. I work my ass off each and every day.

[endarkenment]

62. Working while really sick - been there, done that.

That is the reality many of us face. Stay home to try to rest and get well and lose that home, lose your health insurance, and then probably lose your life. Go to work sick as a dog and grind through it and hope that you can deal with both your job stress and your health stress. Great system. And then filthy rich asswipes like the liberloon who owns Whole Foods thinks we should use HSAs and bargain with our health care providers so he doesn't have to provide health insurance benefits or pay his share of a payroll tax.

Health care is a right. Health care is not a product. We are not consumers.

[customerserviceguy]

65. What if there were one "shopping" website

that simply gathered the prices for the tests in your area? Would that be too difficult to use?

How about a website where the prices for drugs could be compared side-by-side? Even if you are too busy to search them out, other people would do so, and the high-pricers would see a loss of business that might force them to conform to what others charge.

That doesn't benefit the person who pays $20 per prescription no matter where they get it, but it does benefit the person who is watching every dollar under a high deductable plan.

Again, how much would my auto insurance be if I felt that I needed to "get something" (besides a piece of paper to wave in a cop's face) for it by having them provide oil changes and tires?

[angstlessk]

70. they do that for medicare and it is a nightmare trying to find out who

carries which medicines, for what price and how many they will allow you to refill before you are cut off 100% it is called a FORMULARY and there are about 100 insurance companies each offering a different FORMULARY..sorry it is beyond the scope of most educated people, never mind those sans computers or the ability to sort through the mess that is the FORMULARY!

[customerserviceguy]

72. Ok, that's one of the things that needs to be regulated

We have a modern method of being able to find information on competing alternatives quickly, and everybody who's reading my words is sitting in front of it right now.

Why should it be easy for me to find a cheap replacement rechargeable battery for my cordless phone on the Internet (I used eBay) and difficult for me to find where I can get the best prices on tests, doctor visits, and prescriptions?

[endarkenment]

13. How do you save for a freaking heart transplant?

We are not healthcare 'consumers'. Healthcare is not a 'product'. We are patients. Healthcare is a basic human right and the discussion should be not about products and consumers but how to efficiently organize our society to provide healthcare for all.

HSAs are bullshit.

[customerserviceguy]

20. We are consumers of all kinds of things

provided in common. Even single payer wouldn't change that. We're consumers of education, highways, public safety, and even defense. We have the right to demand that as a society that we get the best return for our dollars on each of them, and if we make a bad decision in the education field, we live directly with the consequences.

Healthcare is not a product? It seems to use all of the inputs that other 'products' require: capital, labor, raw materials, and services from other businesses, all of which are 'products' themselves, and bought in the open market.

Having health coverage pay for absolutely everything is as stupid as having my auto insurance company pay for my oil changes, brake jobs, and replacement tires. They'd have to charge me $100 for every $50 or $60 worth of stuff that I received for my car, and they'd screw the providers out of even more. How happy do you think Jiffy Lube would be if they only got $5.75 for the oil change I'm paying them $25 for?

[Go2Peace]

56. We're not "Consumers", were neighbors and citizens.

I see you have bought the free market lie. The "power" of consuming can indeed shape markets, but not nearly as well as you think. And you are misinformed to think that single payer countries don't have market forces. They sure do. Canadian providers are private firms. Dr's have small businesses just like they do here. The market operates in those healthcare providers in no worse a manner than it does here. Market forces are modified in our country and theirs. The difference is, here it is modified by big money and business. There it is modified by a government bound by law to represent the citizenry.

[Go2Peace]

57. Sorry, I see you advocate single payer tempered by educated purchasing

I did not see your previous post. In that case we are pretty close in view. I just don't see healthcare being very responsive until we add more providers, which seems to be half of the problem with health care costs. And that part of the puzzle hasn't even been discussed, so I just don't hold much into the idea that we can force the health market to behave in any other way than regulation and wise oversight.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

16. High deductible HSA he is advocating is bullshit --

and here is why:

Years ago when I was looking at purchasing health insurance, I found the only thing even remotely affordably was a high deductible policy -- $120 a month with a $2500 deductible.

It would have taken everything I had just to make the monthly payment.

That policy did nothing to help get me a mammogram, did nothing to help get my annual pap smear, did nothing to help me monitor the health issues I was dealing with, did nothing to help me get treatment for any of the various things like sinus infections, UTIs, or bouts of strep that can hit any time.

Once I got through paying my insurance premium, I would have had no money left to seek the actual treatment for my health need/issues.

I could either afford a catastrophic insurance policy or taking care of the minor stuff on my own. I couldn't do both.

I was very, very lucky for the few years I went without insurance or access to comprehensive healthcare -- I was able to pay for a little bit of general treatment, but if something had gone terrible wrong I would have ended up at the local general hospital.

[customerserviceguy]

25. I will agree that the do-nothing policies sold along with HSAs

are total bullshit, they cost almost as much as full-service plans, but that's just a matter of price control. Whole Foods contributes to tax-deferred HSAs for their employees that allows them to save up funds from year to year (unlike the "use it or lose it" medical savings accounts that most employers offer) for the time when a major expense hits.

I'll admit, they might not work for those who are quite poor or quite sick, but they might just inject some market forces into the rest of the medical industry that would bring down prices for all, including the poor and the chronically ill.

[graywarrior]

6. I'll stop shopping there and I will tell them why.

[Zomby Woof]

7. Overpriced overrated yuppie-mart

It will be easy to boycott someone I don't do business with anyway.

[wackadoodle]

18. Hmm...If you had actually shopped there, you would realize that it's not all overpriced stuff

I cannot find comparable values at my local chain grocer. WF simply has better product (organic or all-natural, with no hydrogenated oils and/or HFCS). They have a house brand called 365 everday values, as well as a great bulk section.

[Zomby Woof]

31. I have actually shopped there

Which is how I reached my accurate pricing conclusion. I gave the store two complete look-overs (and bought a few things, including a paella pan) before making my decision - hence the ease of boycotting.

I can get better value at Trader Joe's or Sprouts, the latter which offers produce from local farmers, organic, etc. with less cost and less pretentiousness.

But thanks for your condescension.

[girl gone mad]

35. You can buy their house brand stuff for less..

direct through bulk suppliers or from local producers. There is nothing special about the 365 line. It isn't local and it isn't unique. It's all made by the same giant multinational manufacturers that supply every big chain grocer. You would come out ahead financially and health wise by supporting local vendors rather than buying Whole Foods branded product. Most of the locally grown or produced items that Whole Foods carries can also be bought cheaper elsewhere.

I'm lucky to live near a Mexican grocer. They only stock produce, meats and dairy from local farmers. The bulk items come from within the state, too. Everything is cheaper, tastier and probably healthier than what they sell at the Whole Foods just a few miles away.

[amborin]

45. the only good product is/was whole nutmeg in their spice section, very difficult to find

anywhere else

i won't shop there again

[Alameda]

39. I have taken a look, and decided No.....

Too prissy for my taste....it has that fake "real" look...like when they are gentrifying a neighborhood.

[paulsby]

42. oh please. whole foods is good because it has a lot of hard to find choices

in one place, but their prices SUCK.

i shop at a mexican/ukrainian market in federal way, wa, for produce, hard to find meats (pork belly, etc.). i have compared their prices to my local whole foods. it's not even close. i can get 10 limes for a dollar at the local market. care to consider what whole foods charges? i've bought cherries there for .79 a lb, fuji apples for .49 a lb, bananas for .30 a lb, etc. whole foods never has prices like these. whole foods is great when i have a complex recipe, with a lot of obscure ingredients, and i want a "one stop shop" to pick up them all. but you pay a premium for doing so. you DO pay a premium. i also prefer quality produce (i grow much of my own fwiw), but am NOT on the 'organic bandwagon'. i want quality produce. some organic is much better quality. some isn't., i care more about it's quality, than i do about whether it's organic.

[Stephanie]

49. Is that you, John? John's known to troll on msg boards to talk about himself.

I agree, I'm a big fan of the 365 brand. But I won't be buying it anymore.

Whole Foods CEO sorry for message board trolling

[Fading Captain]

68. Bullshit

Trader Joes, down the road, has many of the same products much cheaper.

At Whole Foods, you're paying for the feeling that you're a Whole Foods shopper.

It caters to the "subaru" crowd.

[quiet.american]

29. Pretty much agreed. Stepped foot in one for 1st time last week -- won't be back.

Even with the almost-obscene amount of foodstuffs they offer - the whole place struck me as strangely sterile. Not a smile to be seen among the store's staff -- they worked with all the enthusiasm of indentured servants.

Granted, some of the pricing looked fairly reasonable, but not much of it.

[Zomby Woof]

32. They had a decent microbrew selection

But BevMo has even more, for less cost. So why the fuck would I want to give them my money?

WholePaycheck is about APPEARANCE. "Look at me! I shop at WHOLE FOODS! I care!". :puke:

[DebbieCDC]

8. Glad I stopped shopping there over 5 years ago

Now use a local organic-style grocery retailer -- PCC (in Seattle). Much happier with them. I remember being VERY upset when I lived in DC and the local organic grocer (Fresh Fields) was bought out by Whole Foods. It was never the same. Then I moved west and found Whole Foods again -- ugh. But once I found PCC I was more than happy to ditch Whole Foods and their corporatista ways.

[endarkenment]

9. And Savage Weiner is an expert on herbal medicine -

it turns out that there are right wing loons over on the crunchy-granola aisle too.

[Libertas1776]

11. Could never

even afford to step inside that overpriced hipster yuppie market in the first place.

[MindPilot]

12. I shopped there while my local Von's workers were on strike

But no more. I also found out recently they drug test employees.

[FourScore]

41. They drug test their emplyees???

You've got to be kidding. WTF???:smoke:

[sharp_stick]

14. I honestly had no idea

Whole foods is quite a distance from me so I never went there often. Hell, I guess I no longer have to bother going at all. Since I found the local Costco has beef that is at least as good as the stuff at Whole Foods and at about 1/5th the price I hadn't been back to the Whole Foods store.

I had no idea the guy was this RW dumbfucked, kind of like the fundie whacko that owns the Bolthouse Farms organic biz. I quit buying that stuff several months ago.

[orleans]

15. what an asshole. guess they just lost another customer until they fire this dickhead. n/t

[derby378]

19. Republicans own almost every supermarket chain in the Dallas area

If I want to eat, I have to buy from these guys. I could try the local farmer's market, though...

[asdjrocky]

21. If the CEO of Whole Foods cared about peoples health

he'd open up a couple of stores int he hood and lower the prices.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

22. There is no reason to listen to this man.

Mackey has made a career out of back-stabbing and bullying his employees and competitors equally. We cannot forget that he hid behind his wife's screen name while bashing Wild Oats stock in business forums, with the intention of lowering the price before WF bought them out. The conclusion of that was that he hadn't broken any laws, but that he had behaved unethically. He's a creep.

I work for a company that WF is targeting as its main competition in this area (Pacific Northwest). Recently, attempting to get out from under an SEC investigation into Whole Foods' monopolization of the natural/organic foods market, WF subpoenaed from us years' worth of proprietary documents about our sales, projections, and expansion plans. A quarter-million bucks later, my company has resisted this bullying, at the expense of company profit share and temporary halts on expansion.

I read his op-ed and found the same Republic® Party talking points sticking out of this poor excuse for a free ad for Whole Foods. And he dares to bring in the "our workers decide" bullshit.

[kevinbgoode]

59. Exactly. When a company holds a meeting and says

"here are the two choice I've decided YOU get to decide on" That's not much of a CHOICE.

And while I know HSA's are tax-deferred, it seems to me a bit patronizing to have an employer run a grant savings account for each employee. And since he is in favor of massive tort reform (meaning, no one can sue if a company can screw you over)...what guarantees do any employees have that they get the remains of this account if they leave?

[ljm2002]

23. I never liked Whole Foods anyway...

...they charge too damned much and waste lots of space with high-margin items to the detriment of basic grocery items.

Screw 'em, I never went there anyway and now I'm *really* not going there!

[amborin]

46. "whole paycheck" too darned expensive,

except for the house brand nutmeg

they are the only store i can find that sells the actual entire nutmeg nut

guess i will do without

[nashville_brook]

24. i will never shop at whole foods again.

[Eric J in MN]

27. "individual empowerment" = injured people can't sue

Yeah, that makes sense (sarcasm)

[quiet.american]

28. Instinctively, I've never liked Whole Foods stores -- with this revelation, now I know why. nt

[imdjh]

36. Further proof- hippies aren't necessarily liberal

I was talking to my local hippy before the election. You would think a self employed man with a brother/business partner who has kidney failure would be for Obama and Single Payer. Wrong. He gets VA health care and his brother is on disability (working under the table) and on Medicare. So here you have two men on public assistance of one form or another , opposing health care, and his reason? "My taxes will go up."

[Hippo_Tron]

37. I would describe Whole Foods as "yuppie" not "hippie"

Trader Joe's is a little more "hippie" and a little more progressive than Whole Foods but I'd still call it "yuppie".

[Yunomi]

44. I'm glad people are starting

to see WF for what it really is-just another money grubbing corporation.

[girl gone mad]

47. The left needs to have a revolution like the Reagan Revolution..

except instead of getting people to be less dependent on "big government", we should encourage people to become less dependent on these mega-corporations. Shop locally. Buy less plastic crap and take care of the stuff you have. Grow your own food. Make your own coffee. Turn off the tv and read a book. Stop feeding the machine that is destroying our environment and our quality of life.

[Luminous Animal]

61. We hade one of those. Revolution, that is. It was called the 60s.

Nixon, and both the Republicans and Democrats destroyed it by turning poor people into criminals. Although the people in the 60s understood the value of government. Now, apparently, we are all supposed to be our own government.

[CitizenPatriot]

48. thanks for the head's up

wow. shop there no more. that's just crazy talk. Does he even know who his customers are? Good dog, the man must be a republican to be that stupid.

[Shagbark Hickory]

50. According to the KOS poll, they just lost at over 2400 regular customers because this prick just had

to open his stupid mouth.

Will I still shop there? Maybe. Because if I were to boycott all the companies run by right wing corporate fuckwads, I'd not be buying too much.

Here's a newsflash, you overpaid douchebag, I don't give a rats ass what your ideas are for healthcare.

[marmar]

51. Shop at local organic markets and food co-ops.....Screw Whole Check Market.

n/t

[Sterling]

52. I worked at one of the first WF when I was in between gigs

Even then that place was run like a concentration camp. The employee's were treated poorly and paid even worse. No surprise to me that they have some pretty RW policies. I hate to admit it but from time to time I like going to the new WF close to my house but I still get a little creeped out.

[REP]

58. ...yet another reason I'm a Trader Joe's customer

I know TJ's is owned by Aldi's. I also know people who work at TJ's and and at Whole Paycheck ... and I'll keep supporting the labor practices of TJ's.

I also know Whole Paycheck is owned by a RW whack job. At least TJ's doesn't pretend to be anything other than a funky place to get decent food at affordable prices (and yes, they're quite affordable).

[Vinca]

63. Boycott.

[marshall]

66. Whole Foods is about profits, not promoting healthy living

They market themselves well for an audience that has more money than they know what to do with, and it works well for them.

[Fading Captain]

67. Fuck Whole Foods

A guy who charges $1.25 more for the same gallon of Horizon milk as the local grocer has no right telling us how to save money on health care.

[lunatica]

69. Yup. I don't shop there anymore. I shop CostCo.

[Freddie Stubbs]

71. The vast majority of his company's customers have health care insurance

[Imperfect World]

73. Why are people in this thread mad at Mackey for providing his employees with such a wonderful plan?

The post that started this thread contains a link to the Wall St. Journal home page, but does not have a link to John Mackey's actual article, which is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

In his article, he states:

"Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness."

"Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction."

That's a great policy, and I don't know why people posting in this thread are getting mad over it. There are 50 million uninsured people in this country who would love to have that kind of coverage. In fact, even among the 250 million who already have insurance, I bet a lot of them would prefer to have the Whole Foods plan, instead of the insurance that they currently have.

Why are people mad at Mackey for providing his employees with such a wonderful plan?