Health News // Current

An online guide to following today's floor action on health care reform.

Health care reform has arrived on the floor of the House of Representatives, with a... more

atomiclegion
added this
17 days ago
|
0 comments

H1N1 CREATED IN THE USA BY SCIENTISTS

If vaccines really worked to save lives, then the more people you vaccinate, the lower... more

vesher
added this
1 month ago
|
9 comments

Cheerleader Blames Flu Shot for Debilitating Neurological Condition

So a healthy 25 year old woman walks into the doctor's office for a seasonal flu shot..

vesher
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death

Stop being spoon fed by BIG PHARMA

franksalot
added this
1 month ago
|
4 comments

Endangered Specied on Health Care

If human beings do not support health care reform we are essentially against the... more

PresidioMediaLab
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All

To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America.... more

lu7cky
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

250,000 calls to congress for healthcare reform, Today.

Over 250,000 calls for healthcare reform in one day, smashing the goal of 100,000.... more

Thhines
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

New Medical Marijuana Policy Issued by Obama Justice. Dept.

the Justice Dept. will no longer seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers... more

ryan8566
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Juggling Enhances Connections In The Brain

The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council and published... more

BUILDUSMAXIMUS
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Milton Friedman - Socialized Medicine

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism: The Whole Foods CEO on health care, veganism, and free markets

NOTE: This is an abridged version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For that and downloadable versions, go to http://reason.tv/video/show/918

When he started his first organic food store in Austin, Texas in 1978, Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey had no idea that he would eventually usher in not just a revolution in how we shop but what we buy. If you dig being able to buy dozens of types of once-exotic apples, or cheese, or wine, or soaps, or countless other items, you can thank Mackey in part for helping to create cathedrals of commerce that have vastly enriched our day-to-day lives and vastly expanded our palates. (Full disclosure: Mackey has contributed to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.)

In August, Mackey became one of the most controversial businessmen in America when he penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal outlining his company's free-market-oriented health care system and offering eight concrete reforms that would reduce costs and improve access. Noting that health care is not "a right" as that term is properly understood, Mackey forcefully argued that increasing government intervention into health care is precisely the wrong thing to do: "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."

The response from the left to Mackey's op-ed was swift: Advocates of single-payer health care, union activists, and others called for protests at and boycotts of Whole Foods, despite the fact that the company provides affordable and well-regarded coverage to its employees.

As a cutting-edge entrepreneur who is comfortable quoting astrological signs and Ludwig von Mises, who practices veganism and sells some of the best meat in America, and who chases profits and is an outspoken advocate of charitable giving, Mackey confounds conventional political categories. As an advocate of what he calls "conscious capitalism," Mackey is that rarest of businessman: an articulate and passionate defender of free enterprise and free individuals.

In late September, Mackey sat down with Reason's Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie to talk about health care reform, corporate social responsibility (on which Mackey has written for Reason), why government interventions rarely achieve their goals, and how Mackey came to his unstinting belief in free markets.

Approximately five minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Meredith Bragg.

This is an abridged version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For that and downloadable versions, go to http://reason.tv/video/show/918
Category: News & PoliticsNOTE: This is an abridged version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For that... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

JOHN MACKEY'S CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM: FULL INTERVIEW VERSION

Note: This is the full version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For an abridged, five-minute version, go here.

When he started his first organic food store in Austin, Texas in 1978, Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey had no idea that he would eventually usher in not just a revolution in how we shop but what we buy. If you dig being able to buy dozens of types of once-exotic apples, or cheese, or wine, or soaps, or countless other items, you can thank Mackey in part for helping to create cathedrals of commerce that have vastly enriched our day-to-day lives and vastly expanded our palates. (Full disclosure: Mackey has contributed to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.)

In August, Mackey became one of the most controversial businessmen in America when he penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal outlining his company's free-market-oriented health care system and offering eight concrete reforms that would reduce costs and improve access. Noting that health care is not "a right" as that term is properly understood, Mackey forcefully argued that increasing government intervention into health care is precisely the wrong thing to do: "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."

The response from the left to Mackey's op-ed was swift: Advocates of single-payer health care, union activists, and others called for protests at and boycotts of Whole Foods, despite the fact that the company provides affordable and well-regarded coverage to its employees.

As a cutting-edge entrepreneur who is comfortable quoting astrological signs and Ludwig von Mises, who practices veganism and sells some of the best meat in America, and who chases profits and is an outspoken advocate of charitable giving, Mackey confounds conventional political categories. As an advocate of what he calls "conscious capitalism," Mackey is that rarest of businessman: an articulate and passionate defender of free enterprise and free individuals.

In late September, Mackey sat down with Reason's Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie to talk about health care reform, corporate social responsibility (on which Mackey has written for Reason), why government interventions rarely achieve their goals, and how Mackey came to his unstinting belief in free markets.

Approximately five minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Meredith Bragg.

This is the full version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For an abridged, five-minute version, go here or click below.Note: This is the full version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey. For an... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business

Thirty-five years ago, Milton Friedman wrote a famous article for The New York Times Magazine whose title aptly summed up its main point: "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits." The future Nobel laureate in economics had no patience for capitalists who claimed that "business is not concerned 'merely' with profit but also with promoting desirable 'social' ends; that business has a 'social conscience' and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing em�ployment, eliminating discrimination, avoid�ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of re�formers."

Friedman, now a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, wrote that such people are "preach�ing pure and unadulterated socialism. Busi�nessmen who talk this way are unwitting pup�pets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades."

John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, is one businessman who disagrees with Friedman. A self-described ardent libertarian whose conversation is peppered with references to Ludwig von Mises and Abraham Maslow, Austrian economics and astrology, Mackey believes Friedman's view is too narrow a description of his and many other businesses' activities. As important, he argues that Friedman's take woefully undersells the humanitarian dimension of capitalism.

In the debate that follows, Mackey lays out his personal vision of the social responsibility of business. Friedman responds, as does T.J. Rodgers, the founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor and the chief spokesman of what might be called the tough love school of laissez faire. Dubbed "one of America's toughest bosses" by Fortune, Rodgers argues that corporations add far more to society by maximizing "long-term shareholder value" than they do by donating time and money to charity.

Reason offers this exchange as the starting point of a discussion that should be intensely important to all devotees of free minds and free markets. Comments should be sent to letters@reason.com.

Putting Customers Ahead of Investors

John Mackey

In 1970 Milton Friedman wrote that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." That's the orthodox view among free market economists: that the only social responsibility a law-abiding business has is to maximize profits for the shareholders.

I strongly disagree. I'm a businessman and a free market libertarian, but I believe that the enlightened corporation should try to create value for all of its constituencies. From an investor's perspective, the purpose of the business is to maximize profits. But that's not the purpose for other stakeholders--for customers, employees, suppliers, and the community. Each of those groups will define the purpose of the business in terms of its own needs and desires, and each perspective is valid and legitimate.

My argument should not be mistaken for a hostility to profit. I believe I know something about creating shareholder value. When I co-founded Whole Foods Market 27 years ago, we began with $45,000 in capital; we only had $250,000 in sales our first year. During the last 12 months we had sales of more than $4.6 billion, net profits of more than $160 million, and a market capitalization over $8 billion.

But we have not achieved our tremendous increase in shareholder value by making shareholder value the primary purpose of our business. In my marriage, my wife's happiness is an end in itself, not merely a means to my own happiness; love leads me to put my wife's happiness first, but in doing so I also make myself happier. Similarly, the most successful businessesThirty-five years ago, Milton Friedman wrote a famous article for The New York Times... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Whoe Foods Health Care Reform – Full Article

Health Care Reform – Full Article

by John Mackey, August 14, 2009 | Permalink

As you are probably aware, I wrote an Op/Ed piece that was published in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week on health care reform, one of the biggest and most emotional issues facing our country. I was asked to write an Op/Ed piece and I gave my personal opinions. While I am in favor of health care reform, Whole Foods Market as a company has no official position on the issue.

In answer to President Obama’s invitation to all Americans to put forward constructive ideas for reforming our health care system, I wrote this Op/Ed piece called simply “Health Care Reform.” An editor at the Journal rewrote the headline to call it “Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare,” which led to antagonistic feelings by many. That was not my intention – in fact, I do not mention the President at all in this piece.

I fully realize that there are many opinions on the healthcare debate, including inside my own company. As we, as a nation, continue to discuss this, I am hopeful that both sides can do so in a civil manner that will lead to positive change for all concerned. You are welcome to share your thoughts in the comments section below. (Just remember our comment guidelines prohibit vulgarity and personal attacks.)

Here is the original unedited version that I submitted.
Health Care Reform

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”-Margaret Thatcher.

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable and they are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation or they will bankrupt us.

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 moves us much closer to a complete governmental takeover of our health care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the exact opposite direction-toward less governmental control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

1. Remove the legal obstacles which slow the creation of high deductible health insurance plans and Health Savings Accounts. The combination of high deductible health insurance and Health Savings Accounts is one solution that could solve many of our health care problems. For example, 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, and provides up to $1,800 per year in additional health care dollars through deposits into their own 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 team member satisfaction.

2. Change the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have exactly the same tax benefits. Right now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible for employers but private health insurance is not. This is unfair.

3. Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchaseHealth Care Reform – Full Article by John Mackey, August 14, 2009 | Permalink... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, 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.

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• 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.Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
2 comments

Stem Cell Science Helps Boy Without Cheekbones

The Cincinnati teen has undergone groundbreaking experimental surgery that is allowing... more

lvk104
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

PSA - Listen to Overpaid Celebrities

Something terrible is happening... Overpaid celebrities don't have a big enough voice... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Big Government Health Care PSA

A parody PSA about Big Government and its plans to take over health care. A spoof of... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Funny Or Die PSA - Health Care - Video Response - 2 Dumb Kids

This is a video response to a Health Care PSA posted on FunnyOrDie.com. The video... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Dying from Lack of Insurance

Dying from Lack of Insurance

September 24, 2009
Bookmark and Share

A new study from researchers with the Harvard Medical School found that 45,000 deaths a year can be attributed to the lack of health insurance. Our readers ask: Really? And, they want to know, isn’t this finding actually from the single-payer advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program?

We’ll answer the latter first: The study was conducted by six researchers who were all with the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. It was published by the American Journal of Public Health, a peer-reviewed journal. Lead author Dr. Andrew P. Wilper is now with the University of Washington Medical School. As for PNHP, two of the authors have strong connections with the group: Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor and associate professor of medicine, respectively, at Harvard Medical School, are co-founders of PNHP, a group of physicians that advocates for a single-payer health care system.

PNHP publicized the results of the study. Harvard, too, touted the research. Dr. Woolhandler told us that PNHP didn’t have anything to do with the study other than publicizing it after it was released. PNHP "didn’t fund it … didn’t have anything to do with analysis," she says.

The 45,000 deaths figure became the basis for an eye-catching billboard from the Health Care for America Education Fund, a group associated with Health Care for America NOW, a coalition of liberal and union groups backing health care overhaul efforts.

Now, on to the tough question: Is the 45,000 figure accurate? We can’t say for sure, but scores of other studies also conclude that persons without health insurance have a higher chance of dying prematurely than those with health insurance. A committee headed by Dr. John Z. Ayanian of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine reviewed nearly 100 such studies released since 2002. And in March he summed up the findings for Congress this way:

Ayanian’s testimony to Congress, March 2009: Uninsured Americans frequently delay or forgo doctors’ visits, prescription medications, and other effective treatments, even when they have serious disease or life-threatening conditions. … Because uninsured adults seek health care less often than insured adults, they are often unaware of health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or early-stage cancer. Uninsured adults are also much less likely to receive vaccinations, cancer screening services such as mammography and colonoscopy, and other effective preventive services.

The 45,000 estimate is at the high end of estimates, but earlier studies also have put the number of excess deaths from lack of insurance coverage in the thousands:

* A 1993 examination of 1971 through 1987 data on 25- to 74-year-olds from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found a 25 percent higher risk of mortality for the uninsured compared with the insured, after adjusting for various factors, such as age, smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, education and income. The study, by lead researcher Peter Franks, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
* In 2002, the Institute of Medicine, basing its work on the Franks study and another examining Current Population Survey data, found that 18,000 people (age 25 to 64) died because they lacked health insurance in 2000. (Ayanian added in his testimony that for those with heart disease or cancer and without health insurance, the risk of death for the uninsured could be 40 percent to 50 percent higher.)
* In 2008, the Urban Institute updated the IOM numbers, using later Census Bureau estimates on the uninsured. It found that in 2006, the number who died because of a lack of insurance was 22,000. The Urban Institute also said that the IOM figure "may have underestimated the number of deaths" by trying to calculate different mortality-rateDying from Lack of Insurance September 24, 2009 Bookmark and Share A new study... more

bullpcp
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

tagged w/ Health News

An online guide to following today's floor action on health care reform.

H1N1 CREATED IN THE USA BY SCIENTISTS

Cheerleader Blames Flu Shot for Debilitating Neurological Condition

Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death

Endangered Specied on Health Care

An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All

250,000 calls to congress for healthcare reform, Today.

New Medical Marijuana Policy Issued by Obama Justice. Dept.

Juggling Enhances Connections In The Brain

Milton Friedman - Socialized Medicine

John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism: The Whole Foods CEO on health care, veganism, and free markets

JOHN MACKEY'S CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM: FULL INTERVIEW VERSION

Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business

Whoe Foods Health Care Reform – Full Article

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

Stem Cell Science Helps Boy Without Cheekbones

PSA - Listen to Overpaid Celebrities

Big Government Health Care PSA

Funny Or Die PSA - Health Care - Video Response - 2 Dumb Kids

Dying from Lack of Insurance

current videos

The Obamas: After Dark

Five Favorite Films with John Woo

Girlfriend Texts During Football

People Eating Weird Things

Vampires Can Suck It

Prison Contraband

about current

watch current

the people are talking

the basics

take us with you

tools

stay in touch

© 2009 Current TV, LLC
All Rights Reserved