Whole Foods Boycott

Last week, Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey wrote an opinion piece in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal titled "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare," opposing President Obama's efforts to create a government-funded public healthcare option. He also criticized the single-payer healthcare system of countries such as Canada and Britain saying he doesn’t believe in “an intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter,” which he said are best provided through “market exchanges.” This is not very different than Bush's position on health care.

In the op-ed piece, John Mackey writes that a "careful reading of both The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter." Mr. Mackey either ignores or doesn't care about the fact that the United States has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the declaration states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

I used to spend around of $200 a week ($10,000 a year) at Whole Foods, but after reading Mackey's piece, I've decided to no longer shop there and buy my groceries somewhere else. Various organizations such as Single Payer Action have also called for a boycott of the chain.


Update I: there is now a Facebook boycott page with 20,000 members as of August 20, 2009. The Baltimore Sun reports that for every 7,700 customers boycotting, there is a 1% loss of revenue for the store chain. You do the math.

Update II: wholeboycott.com, a dedicate website for the Whole Foods boycott is now up and running.

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