Whole Foods: Challenge

A few weeks ago the underwriters at Blue Shield of California declined my application for health insurance. I was down the same road about 10 years ago, and when I appealed I was accepted for a “high risk” plan that was $450/mo. I just don’t have that kind of cash right now, so am exploring other options.

I’ve had a recurring toothache in 2 places for many months, and am counting the days ’till I can have dental insurance to get those taken care of, nerve damage (from an accident years ago) in my shoulder addressed, and my prescriptions for asthma taken care of. Currently they’re around $400 out of pocket, per month. Asthma is my ‘pre-existing’ condition roadblocking me from affordable coverage. In the meantime I’m prayin’ I don’t get the flu or any other of the numerous afflictions opportune in a compact working space with too many people within nerf-dart shooting distance.

When Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey published his op-ed piece in the WSJ, I was a little more than irritated. I hadn’t yet received my decision from BSOC underwriting, but had been waiting for almost a month… and had already incurred 3 tedious phone-calls from nurses, plugging me with additional research on my application. My favorite sticking point in that process? Being asked when I was diagnosed with asthma. My response: “when I was 12.” Their response: “Do you have an exact date?” My response: “Um, I was 12, and living in Michigan with my family.” Their response: “Yes, do you have the exact date?” My response: “I’m 35. I can’t even remember the doctor’s name. This was 23 years ago. Are you really serious?!” They were, but finally moved-on.

As clueless and asinine as the above question seemed, so seemed the proposition that John Mackey laid on the table in his op-ed piece: for Americans to simply focus on getting healthy, before all being handed costly health insurance. On one hand, Mackey’s core idea does seem logical and like a great challenge to present to Americans- though on the other hand, what if I’m lethargic and working to quit smoking & my fast-food habit, but I get a bad case of the Flu? What if I’m morbidly obese, sure, because yes I have an awful and gluttonous diet… but the root cause of my over-eating is self-loathing from years of abuse that I need more psychotherapy to address, versus dietary commitments that won’t stick without a sustainable emotional mindset to drive? Yeah, put that little nugget of sustainability where the sun don’t shine, Mr. Mackey.

The key point that most folks I know responded to with a blank “WTF?!” look, was the socioeconomic void between what we identify as a “healthy lifestyle,” and poverty. If you’re a working single-parent with many kids and more than 40hr/wk spent at a job, there simply isn’t enough time to cook from-scratch food. Likewise, food that’s organic- any food, prepared or fresh? Megabucks, forget it! Yoga to alleviate stress? Sure, right after the private tutoring that’s also not a hope in hell within reach after basic bills get paid.

If John Mackey really cared, what would I love to see? I’d love to see Whole Foods make a radical, charitable contribution to alleviating the wellness burdens on America’s poor, and offer **substantial** discounts to all who qualify, under a 510(c)3 program. How would one qualify? Well, if a family receives Section-8 help from the government, provide them a discount-card similar to the “Safeway Card,” for them to use when shopping at any Whole Foods Market. Unlike the Spaceway card however, don’t offer 5% or 2% savings, but rather sell food at discounted prices that are unprecedented. Better, sell the food at cost, and focus on making profits from those who are currently Whole Foods shoppers. Accepting food-stamps and WIC coupons at Whole Foods Market, would also be a wonderful thing to see.

Simply getting folks marginalized by cyclical poverty to embrace anything optimistic or self-empowering, let alone concepts of wellness & preventative health that white/hippie Americans take for granted as being attainable, is a monster of a task… and if Mackey and the board of Whole Foods could drop the “more enlightened than you” snobbery common among the over-educated Birkenstock-wearing set, then maybe true to the hippy spirit, people’s lives really could be changed at a large scale.

Folks in poor communities don’t eat greasy/nasty frozen/processed food because they’re stupid or lazy, they do it because that’s what’s affordable and filling- and walking-distance from homes in inner-city neighborhoods. When was the last time you saw a produce section (or even milk or juice) at a corner-store with bars or bullet-proof glass isolating the cashier from customers? No, not everybody has multiple cars to a family (or sometimes, even one car to a family- as New Orleans’ Katrina disaster affirmed), for an adult not at work to go grocery shopping.

If you’re either a single parent or one of two parents (or multiple adults in a household) who all work multiple jobs, likewise- the meal-deals that fast food restaurants offer are obscenely cheaper than purchasing the equivalent food, at a grocery store. Add to that the burden of spending time you don’t have, to cook a meal at home. “We all make choices,” many folks like to prosthelytize- and in many of these family situations, I really don’t think that most middle-class/educated Americans get it: for so many individuals and families afflicted by poverty, there *aren’t* choices, there’s surviving- and then there’s not surviving. Period.

John Mackey probably has never been even close to extremely poor, though honestly- neither have I.

No, I’m not making assumptions about poor families. Most of the kids I’ve worked with teaching in West Oakland and at a bike shop in San Francsisco, all come from Section-8 assistance-receiving families. Most families are single-parent, or a single-parent living with a grandparent. If drugs/alcohol or mental-illness or cyclical abuse aren’t factors, then the parent spends most of their waking hours working multiple jobs. For the families where drugs and alcohol or mental-illness are factors: well, organic foods aren’t even on the short-list of things the family could do to become healthier, and the suffering that kids experience because of their parents choices needs to be minimized.

Regular exercise and family outings on weekends to do physically active things… sure, that’s totally in the cards after polo lessons and time at the country club… which honestly, isn’t unreasonably cynical, considering how much work it is to raise kids solo, or with multiple jobs under each parent’s belt. Oh yes, the car thing, too- you need a car to leave the ghetto, to do most of that stuff, anyway. Read Nickel and Dimed or Fast Food Nation. Both of those books starkly and non-hysterically outline the simple realities that have built-up these mountainous boundaries over the decades. Both books are backed with significant research, and are based on facts & plain truth- no rhetoric, and very little of the “save the wales, boycott grapes!” hysteria that ruins so many other books on similarly marginalized subject matter.

So: is there inequity present? You betcha!! Do we need health insurance for all? Well, I think so. However- if John Mackey got his way, wellness from personal choices would have to be earned, before the “handout” of health insurance is made available. Honestly, if wellness as middle-class America knows it were an equal-opportunity proposition, Mackey’s manifesto wouldn’t anger me so much. Having the exposure to poverty-afflicted and working class families that I do, however, it’s been made very clear to me that I’m in an incredibly privileged class… not because I can afford a $30K truck and a membership to a fancy gym, but because I have time too cook and can afford things like vitamins, abundant vegetables, always/only organic foods, juices instead of soda-pop, holistic medical options, and hobbies that involve exercise and being outdoors.

All of the aforementioned are true luxuries in today’s world, and it vexes me that this reality seems to be lost on some of the most key people of influence in potentially turning this paradigm of inequity on it’s head. Sure, I whine plenty about being “broke” at times and about how much my debt sucks- but really, I’m in an incredible position of privilege. Most of the people who will read this, are too. I don’t know what can be done to change this- but I know that at least talking about it, and that getting the conversation rolling to where business owners and legislators can no longer ignore it- I know that would be a great start.