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Whole Foods Market: A CEO’s Public Opinion at Odds With a Key Demographic

Introduction

On August 12, 2009, the vice-president for corporate communications at Whole Foods Market arrived at the Austin, Texas, headquarters amidst uncertainty about reactions to the public opinion of the CEO that had brought national attention to the company the previous day. In the midst of an ideological battle over healthcare, the CEO had publicly taken a position at odds with the store’s key customer demography.

The prolific CEO, John Mackey, had written an opinion-editorial which was published by the Wall Street Journal. Multiple media outlets were picking up on the story of Mackey’s op-ed, and they would be followed by customers, bloggers, unions, protestors, and competitors. Many groups saw the seemingly paradoxical position of Whole Foods’ CEO as an opportunity to promote their agendas at the expense of Whole Foods.

This was not the first time the outspoken John Mackey had drawn fire for his writings.

Some five years earlier it was revealed that he had used a pseudonym to post damaging opinions about a rival organic food market on a financial website. When the rival’s stock price diminished, Whole Foods acquired them. The SEC finally ruled out any action against Mr. Mackey after an 11 month probe.1

The Whole Foods Market Corporate Communications team would need every ounce of

its collective crisis-management experience to weather this coming storm. Whether or not their own political tendencies were aligned with those of the CEO, they agreed that he had a right to state his opinion. It was now up to the rest of the Whole Foods Market Corporate Communications team to respond to the public outcry that followed from John Mackey’s decision. This case was prepared by Research Assistants Tahir Imtiaz, Jing Ji, and Andrew Mitchell under the direction of James S. O’Rourke, Concurrent Professor of Management, as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Information was gathered from corporate as well as public sources. Copyright ©2010. Eugene D. Fanning Center for Business Communication. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without permission.

Company History

In 1978, John Mackey started a natural foods store with his then girlfriend Rene Lawson called SaferWay in Austin, Texas.2 Two years later, John merged his SaferWay store with Clarksville Natural Grocery to form a new store called Whole Foods Market.3 The company grew by opening new stores in other cities around the country and by acquiring other natural food chains. Whole Foods now has more than 270 stores in the United States and four in the United Kingdom. Sales in 2008 topped $8 billion.

The company is focused on product quality and selecting food ingredients with minimal processing. The company has a list of unacceptable food ingredients, which includes artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, preservatives, and more. Whole Foods is ranked third in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Top 25 Green Power Partners.4 The company is also consistently ranked among the most socially responsible companies.5 This focus on the quality of its product, along with its green culture, has won the company many admirers. Whole Foods donates 5% of its net profit to charity. Each store also holds 5% days four times a year during which the store donates 5% of its net sales to a local nonprofit organization. Whole Foods’ involvement in social causes has endeared it to its customers and built strong loyalty. A strong customer segment of Whole Foods is comprised of liberals with left-leaning politics, and they like the company’s involvement in green and social causes.

Whole Foods has been praised by Fortune magazine as one of the “100 best companies to

work for” every year since the inception of the list in 1998.6 The company has approximately 54,000 employees and very limited union influence. All employees who work over thirty hours per week are eligible for the company insurance plan. Almost eighty-nine percent of Whole Foods employees are eligible for its health care insurance plan. The plan includes a relatively high deductible of $2,500 for each employee.7

John Mackey

John Mackey was born in 1954. In the 1970s, he was a student of philosophy and religion at the University of Texas at Austin, but later dropped out. 8 When he was still a college student, he joined a vegetarian cooperative where he met his girlfriend, Renee Lawson Hardy. She eventually became his business partner. In 1978, at the age of twenty-five, John and Renee opened their first health foods grocery store named SaferWay Natural Foods in Austin, a counterculture alternative to the conventional grocery chain Safeway. 9 They borrowed $10,000 and raised $35,000 from family and friends to start the business. 10 The store was the first vegetarian supermarket in Texas. 11

John Mackey has served as the chairman and CEO of Whole Foods since 1980. According to the BBC, in 2006, he announced that he would reduce his salary to $1 a year, donate his stock portfolio to charity, and set up a $100,000 emergency fund for staff facing personal problems. In a letter sent to his employees on November 2, 2006, he wrote: “I am now 53 years old and I have reached a place in my life where I no longer want to work for money, but

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simply for the joy of the work itself and to better answer the call to service that I feel so clearly in my own heart.” (The letter was reprinted in Fast Company magazine, Feb. 1, 2007).

Mackey’s political position as a free-market libertarian is well known.12 He also is the “driving force” behind significant changes in animal welfare. He started the nonprofit Animal Compassion Foundation. Mackey gives away up to $1 million a year to animal welfare groups and other charities. 13 Whole Foods was the first chain store to set standards for humane animal treatment. 14

Mackey is a vegetarian, and since late 2003, he has considered himself a vegan. He has two children with former longtime girlfriend Mary Kay Hagen. He married his current wife Deborah Morin in 1992. The couple spends the work-week in Austin and weekends at their 720- acre ranch 40 miles west of Austin. Mackey enjoys reading, and participates in two monthly book clubs. 15

However, this Healthcare op-ed issue is not the first time Mackey has been in the spotlight for his actions. He is well known for being blunt.16 On July 20, 2007, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Mackey had been using the pseudonym “Rahodeb” (an anagram of his wife’s name, Deborah) to post blogs criticizing Whole Foods’ competitor, Wild Oats Market, and questioning the value of the company’s stock.17 When Mackey announced his desire to acquire Wild Oats Market for $670 million, the Federal Trade Commission approved a complaint challenging the acquisition.18 Whole Foods completed the buyout on August 27, 2007. An SEC investigation cleared him in May 2008, and he began to blog again. In a 2000-word post on his blog, he argued that he made no mistakes in ethics, only in judgment.19

The Market for Organic Food

Much like Whole Foods, the organic and natural food industry has experienced rapid growth in the last few years. What originally started in the 1970s as a premium on foods grown without pesticides and synthetic fertilizer is now a major force. Nationwide sales of organic food increased 142% from $2.1 billion in 2003 to $5.2 billion in 2008. These figures do not account for sales of private label organic food, such as Whole Foods’ “365” label, which would have increased sales levels markedly. What was once an eccentric and marginal issue has become a common and recognized selling point for consumers, despite its generally higher price. The health benefits of eating organic food, despite its cost, appeals most to two major groups: young adults and high-income consumers.20

Forecasts for future sales growth are not as optimistic as the previous six years have been. In year-over-year sales, the market has slowed (starting in 2007). There are many reasons for this, including the same food inflation that affects all food. 21 Other detrimental effects to the industry include the “locavore” movement and a 50% increase in farmers markets from 2001 to 2006. These markets now account for $1 billion in sales. Furthermore, when consumers do shop in stores, they are more likely to seek out private label options that can have significant cost savings.22 Food, drug, and mass merchandisers (excluding Wal-Mart) account for some 60% of organic food sales.

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The Current Debate over Health Care in the U.S.

Even before President Obama was elected in 2008, he was campaigning for health care reform. Upon taking office, revamping health care became the president’s top legislative priority. In its simplest form, the president’s ultimate goal was to extend coverage to the 47 million uninsured Americans and simultaneously slow the growth of health care spending.23

Support and opposition fell generally along predictable political party lines. Republicans and conservatives portrayed the legislation as a costly government take-over that would ultimately cost the public far more than it saves. Further, Republicans said, it would remove people’s fundamental rights to control their own destiny and place too much control in the hands of the federal government. The GOP offered its own healthcare plan that did not include required coverage for the uninsured, but encouraged states to “guarantee access to affordable coverage.”24

As of early August 2009, the message from the White House was an eight-point list of

“Health Insurance Consumer Protections” that the White House web site promised would “bring you and your family peace of mind.”25 Those basic eight points were expected to remain central to whatever final bill would finally be presented to congress:

• No discrimination for pre-existing conditions • No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses • No cost sharing for preventive care • No dropping of coverage for seriously ill • No gender discrimination • No annual or lifetime cap on coverage • Extended coverage for young adults • Guaranteed insurance renewal

When the first version of this bill was rushed to both houses of Congress, it quickly proceeded out of committee so Congress could vote on it before summer recess. It was during this period that lawmakers attempted to build support for the plan by holding town-hall style meetings and making presentations to the public.

Conservative groups responded by encouraging confrontation at these events, often

resulting in disruptive or rowdy tirades widely reported by major news organizations across the country. Conservative media were uniformly opposed to these meetings as well, describing the President’s health care plan as socialist and threatening to the basic rights of Americans, particularly the elderly.

The primary opposition, according to the White House, came from insurance company

procedures that burden physicians, nurses and patients. At a news conference held July 30, 2009, and also reported by major news organizations, Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the insurance industry’s position as “shock and awe, carpet-bombing by the health insurance industry to perpetuate the status quo.”

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The Op-Ed

John Mackey had made it known to the corporate communications group at Whole Foods that he was going to make his opinions known, but he did not indicate that it would be through the nationally distributed Wall Street Journal. When the piece was eventually published on August 11, 2009, it came during one of the slowest news weeks of the year, and it surprised even insiders with its impact.

Whether or not the corporate communications team had a hand in working with John Mackey to write and place the editorial, they certainly had their work cut out for them once the piece ran in the Wall Street Journal and on its web site. Certainly, a large demographic among Whole Foods Market shoppers is the progressive, environmental activist – one who is more likely than the average consumer to write, e-mail, or call the company to protest some of John Mackey’s messages.

The piece ran the standard length, about 1300 words. In it, Mackey made some fairly

standard conservative arguments about why healthcare should not be controlled by the government. His general argument focused on “less governmental control and more individual empowerment.”26 Mackey offered his own list of eight points, but unlike President Obama’s, his list would lower the cost of health care for everyone. The list was essentially an explanation of the Whole Foods insurance system in which nearly all employees are given the choice to choose their doctor and a $2500 annual cash spending account for healthcare. This account would encourage employees to be frugal with their healthcare because they have a significant amount of money to lose.

Mackey examined so-called “universal healthcare” in other countries such as the UK and

Canada, and ultimately made the contentious claim that those systems don’t recognize any inherent right to healthcare any more than the U.S. “A careful reading of the… Constitution does not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food, or shelter, because there isn’t any.”

He finished the piece with a lengthy accusation of the American diet as the real culprit,

and extolled the virtues of every American adult taking responsibility for their own health. He specified what a diet ought to be, and showed a recommended diet with a pie chart. It is no coincidence that he recommended “whole foods which are plant-based, nutrient dense, and low fat.” He described adoption of this type of diet as exercising “the freedom to make wise lifestyle choices” that will “enrich our personal lives and will help create a vibrant sustainable American society.”

In an interview some seven weeks later, Mackey defended his position by saying,

“President Obama called for constructive suggestions for health-care reform; I took him at his word.” Mackey was unapologetic for his denial of health care as a right of all Americans and his support for freedom of choice. As he put it, “I gave my personal opinions. Whole Foods has no official position on the issue.”

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Public Backlash

In terms of media and public attention, several aspects of the situation created the “perfect storm” for ongoing (and likely unwanted) media coverage: August is a slow news month, Congress was not in session, and in those weeks leading up to the new fall congressional session, the media were eager for any hooks that could expand on the central, controversial topic of health care reform. Add a well-known CEO to the mix – one who publicly announces a position on health care that most people assume is the opposite of what his famously progressive customer base would agree with – and it becomes delicious fodder for cable news and radio talk shows.

In the mean time, John Mackey left for a lengthy back-country vacation the day after the article was published. This turned out be a blessing in so far as he was not available for interviews. The media feedback was indeed immediate, particularly from news outlets that recognized a fundamental opposition between Mackey’s anti-government position, and the typical Whole Foods Market consumer’s liberal views on most issues. Fox News and various libertarian sources were the first to carry the story; it was later picked up by news organizations all over the country.

The media attention brought out protesters to a handful of stores, which drove the media

coverage into a second week. There were demonstrations in Boston, Maryland, Chicago, Austin, and the San Francisco Bay area. Some of them were unobtrusive and typical sign-carrying affairs, but others involved elaborate musical acts and or loud instruments in stores. Still other demonstrations involved people who saw the situation as an opportunity to share their opinions on healthcare, regardless of involvement with Whole Foods. Similarly, the trade unions, which are not a part of Whole Foods, saw it as an opportunity to strike and took the opposite position of whatever Whole Foods was doing.

By week three of the situation, conservative and libertarian groups had been made aware

of the boycott and had started a reverse boycott where in their supporters would go to Whole Foods and shop for groceries in support of Mackey’s position.

Social Media Response Given that the op-ed was available online almost immediately, the response from the online community played a pivotal role in the situation. Whole Foods has a large Twitter presence for a brick-and-mortar store, with more than a million followers. There were thousands of “tweets” going back and forth even though Whole Foods did not take a position.

Whole Foods has always had a “Fan Page” on the social networking site Facebook. It has over 140,000 fans on its official site. Some 152 of its stores have even started their own Facebook sites, clearly showing a company commitment to this new trend. However, following the publishing of the op-ed piece, a “Whole Foods boycott” group sprang up on Facebook and grew to over 27,000 members within two weeks. Whole Foods did respond to this group through its own Facebook page, issuing a response statement through the notes section.

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This social networking angle became a news story in its own right, and seemed to encourage more media coverage, which in turn provided more exposure to the social networks. Furthermore, the rise of viral video provided good visuals of protests at stores and material for reports during the slow news period.

John Mackey’s own blog on www.wholefoods.com got a great deal of attention, as well,

when he tried to further explain his actions a few days after the article was published. He offered a brief explanation of his thoughts and encouraged debate and civil discussion. He clarified that he never included the words “Obamacare” in his title, nor did he ever make mention of the President. He then reprinted his original draft, thought it is not appreciably different from the published version.

The posting generated over 4,000 comments on the page, and many other completely

unrelated comments on other pages of the website. While Whole Foods did delete anything with expletives, or that was posted on a part of the site unrelated to the healthcare debate, the company did not edit those on the Mackey op-ed comment page. A study of these comments found an almost even split between generally negative and generally positive comments, an indication that there is an opportunity for debate. Unfortunately for Whole Foods, many of the negative comments included vows never to shop at the store again. The effects of these boycotts on sales are yet to be determined, but will make an interesting statement about the rights of a CEO to make his opinions known in the context of the company he runs.

Discussion Questions

1. What obligation does a company’s leadership have to refrain from taking a public opinion on a potentially contentious topic?

2. Should John Mackey have made himself available in the weeks following the publication

of his op-ed?

3. Was Whole Foods’ response to the social media attacks appropriate? What would have been an appropriate response?

4. Should a basic understanding of a company’s customer base dictate which opinions

should be shared and which should not?

5. Should John Mackey be allowed to remain as president, CEO, and chairman of the board at Whole Foods? Are his actions in the best interest of his shareholders and stakeholders?

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Appendix A

OPINION AUGUST 11, 2009, 7:30 P.M. ET

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

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

By JOHN MACKEY

"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. 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 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. 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.

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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 to 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.

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

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health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

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Appendix B

Whole Food’s Facebook response

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Appendix C

Whole Foods August Stock Price

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Source: Yahoo! Finance

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References

 

1 Katy McLaughlin and Timothy Martin, “As Sales Slip, Whole Foods Tries Health Push,” Wall Street Journal, (5 August 2009, Eastern Edition), B1 <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124941849645105559.html> 2 Evan Smith, “John Mackey,” Texas Monthly, March 2005 <http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2005-03-01/talks> 3 “Whole Foods Company History,” <www.wholefoodsmarket/company/history> 4 EPA “Top 25 Partners in the Green Power Partnership,” US Environmental Protection Agency, 8 January, 2007. 5 Ronald Alsop, “How Boss's Deeds Buff a Firm's Reputation,” The Wall Street Journal, 31 January, 2007. < http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117019715069692873- 92u520ldt3ZTY_ZFX442W76FnfI_20080131.html?mod=blogs> 6 “Two Austin Firms Make Fortune 100,” Austin Business Journal, 8 Jan., 2007 < http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2007/01/08/daily7.html?surround=lfn> 7 John Mackey, “Creating the High Trust Organization,” 09 March, 2010 <http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/>

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                                                                                                                                                                                                 8 “Peace, love and profit - meet the world's richest organic grocer,” The Observer, consulted 17 July, 2007 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/jan/29/foodanddrink.organics> 9 “Conversations From the Corner Office,” Marketplace <http://marketplace.publicradio.org/segments/corneroffice/corner_mackey_bio.html>  10 “Peace, love and profit - meet the world's richest organic grocer,” The Observer Consulted 17 July, 2007 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/jan/29/foodanddrink.organics> 11 Ibid. 12 “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” Reason Magazine, October 2005 <http://reason.com/archives/2005/10/01/rethinking-the-social-responsi> 13 “Peace, love and profit - meet the world's richest organic grocer,” The Observer, consulted 17 July, 2007 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/jan/29/foodanddrink.organics> 14 Amanda Little, “The Whole Foods Shebang,” Grist Magazine, 17 December, 2004 <http://www.grist.org/article/little-mackey/> 15 “FLOW About Us,” FLOW, January 2006 <http://www.flowidealism.org/Home/about-us.html> 16 Katy McLaughlin and Timothy Martin, “As Sales Slip, Whole Foods Tries Health Push,” Wall Street Journal, 5 August 2009 < http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124941849645105559.html> 17 David Kesmodel and John R. Wilke, “Whole Foods Is Hot, Wild Oats a Dud – So Said ‘Rahodeb’,” Wall Street Journal, 12 July 2007 http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118418782959963745-rGivZMgAG2jUzji0DYY7yEoEaF0_20070719.html?mod=blog 18 “FTC Seeks to Block Whole Foods Market’s Acquisition of Wild Oats Markets,” Federal Trade Commission website, News, 5 June, 2007 http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/06/wholefoods.shtm 19 John Mackey, The CEO's Blog, Back to Blogging, 21 May 2008, Accessed 25 Sept. 2009 < http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/2008/05/21/back-to-blogging/#more-26> 20 Mintel Reports: Organic Food-US-October 2008, Accessed 30 Sept. 2009 < http://reports.mintel.com/sinatra/reports/display/id=226495> 21 Ibid. 22 Pallavi Gogoi, “The Rise of the Locavore,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 20 May, 2008 http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2008/db20080520_920283.htm 23 Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David M. Herszenhorn, “Two Sides Take Health Care Debate Outside Washington,” New York Times, 2 August, 2009 < http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/health/policy/03healthcare.html> 24 Ibid. 25 “Health Insurance Consumer Protections,” The White House website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/

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                                                                                                                                                                                                 26 John Mackey, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare: Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit,” WSJ.com, 11 August 2009 < http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html>