Read Online Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America by Matt Kibbe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Matt Kibbe
Tags: Politics
Ads: Link
crunchy vegan hippie; half Declaration of Independence–reading, freedom-loving rugged individualist. On the one hand, Mackey is an advocate of what he calls Conscious Capitalism, through which he means to debunk the caricature of the revenue-maximizing-at-any-cost businessman. He believes that “every business has the potential for a higher purpose. And if you think about it, all the other professions in our society are motivated by purpose, beyond a narrow interpretation of purpose as restricted to maximizing profits.”
Mackey notes that “doctors are some of the highest paid people in our society and yet doctors have a purpose—to heal people—and that’s the professional ethics taught in medical school.” 33 On the other hand, Mackey has become famous for saying things that could never pass Barack Obama’s lips: “America became the wealthiest country because for most of our history we have followed the basic principles of economic freedom: property rights, freedom to trade internationally, minimal governmental regulation of business, sound money, relatively low taxes, the rule of law, entrepreneurship, freedom to fail, and voluntary exchange.” 34
Some progressives don’t quite get it. Describing Whole Foods’ founding grocer, The New Yorker observed, “The right-wing hippie is a rare bird.” 35 Capitalists who care about their fellow man? Crazy! They react to Mackey in much the same way Al Sharpton does to black conservatives. What exactly is the Left afraid of—a little diversity?
That certainly explains the far Left’s unchecked aggression against what Mackey wrote against Obamacare in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2009.
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. 36
His critique of Obamacare was followed by an eight-point health care reform plan based on the company’s own experience. First, he recommended, government should “[r]emove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).” Daring to take this real-world experimental data to its logical conclusion, he went on to recommend other, even bolder ideas, such as equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance, regardless of whether you get it from your workplace or the yellow pages; increasing competition among insurers; repealing costly, unnecessary mandated benefits on insurance policies; tort reform; Medicare reform; and greater price transparency for consumers.
But what really got Mackey sideways with some was his willingness to address the wholly contrived point of faith among progressive Democrats that health care services are a government-granted right:
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. 37
Unforgivable! The greengrocer’s apostasy against the Chosen One’s plan to take over our health care system was greeted by an organized boycott of Whole Foods. That boycott was in turn offset by a Tea Party counterprotest—a
Mackey notes that “doctors are some of the highest paid people in our society and yet doctors have a purpose—to heal people—and that’s the professional ethics taught in medical school.” 33 On the other hand, Mackey has become famous for saying things that could never pass Barack Obama’s lips: “America became the wealthiest country because for most of our history we have followed the basic principles of economic freedom: property rights, freedom to trade internationally, minimal governmental regulation of business, sound money, relatively low taxes, the rule of law, entrepreneurship, freedom to fail, and voluntary exchange.” 34
Some progressives don’t quite get it. Describing Whole Foods’ founding grocer, The New Yorker observed, “The right-wing hippie is a rare bird.” 35 Capitalists who care about their fellow man? Crazy! They react to Mackey in much the same way Al Sharpton does to black conservatives. What exactly is the Left afraid of—a little diversity?
That certainly explains the far Left’s unchecked aggression against what Mackey wrote against Obamacare in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2009.
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. 36
His critique of Obamacare was followed by an eight-point health care reform plan based on the company’s own experience. First, he recommended, government should “[r]emove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).” Daring to take this real-world experimental data to its logical conclusion, he went on to recommend other, even bolder ideas, such as equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance, regardless of whether you get it from your workplace or the yellow pages; increasing competition among insurers; repealing costly, unnecessary mandated benefits on insurance policies; tort reform; Medicare reform; and greater price transparency for consumers.
But what really got Mackey sideways with some was his willingness to address the wholly contrived point of faith among progressive Democrats that health care services are a government-granted right:
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. 37
Unforgivable! The greengrocer’s apostasy against the Chosen One’s plan to take over our health care system was greeted by an organized boycott of Whole Foods. That boycott was in turn offset by a Tea Party counterprotest—a
Similar Books
