amylynn1022’s Recent Comments

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  Yes, but I have as yet to see an opponent of the current health insurance reform offer a viable alternative.  I will give Mackey credit for trying, but the truth is that his proposals are just the same old pro-for-profit, lets's-ignore-the-need-for fundamental-change solutions that my senior senator, the dishonorable Mitch McConnell, has been proposing.  Granted, Mackey gussies them up a bit in enlightened-business-speak, but that doesn't make them any more valid.  (I stand by my earlier request that he needs to have his employees surveyed by an independent, unbiased entity before he claims that they are thrilled with their health insurance.  I know if I was in their place I would rather have comprehensive insurance and while I would take the high-deductible plan I would describe it to any confidental source as "crap".)  All research points to the fact that people with high-deductible insurance and HSAs act much like people without insurance--they don't spend their healthcare money "wisely," whatever that means--they just don't spend it at all unless absolutely neccessary.  Even for "wise" things such as preventive care, because there is always the fear that it won't be there if they _really_ need it. The model Mackey and people like him support is wrong--people don't buy and sell healthcare like tomatoes or cars.  Trying to do so has caused many of the problems that we have with healthcare in the US--we need more regulations, not less. The health care "system" in the US is fundamentally broken and cannot be solved by calls for personal responsibly or tort reform (what is up with the calls for tort reform!  Sen McConnell has a bee in his bonnet about this, too).  

  On Boycotting Whole Foods won’t help posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago 27 Responses

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  A question--I keep hearing claims that Whole Foods provides health insurance to most of its employees.  But the truth is that any employer can claim to provide their employees health insurance and then provide only a crappy catastrophic insurance that doesn't actual cover anything.  Or  they can offer insurance but then make the employee cost so high that most of rank and file employees can't afford it.  So I want to know, has anyone talked to the rank and file employees of Whole Food about what they think of health insurance?  If Mr Mackey really is providing comprehensive, affordable health insurance to his rank and file employees and still turning a profit then he really needs to share the secret of his success with the rest of us.  If he is just providing crappy or unaffordable insurance and then trying to score PR and politic points for covering his employees then he needs to be called on it.  I am not going to boycott Whole  Foods, in part because I don't live near one right now.  But if Mr Mackey, CEO, is going to make political pronouncements about matters well out of his accepted areas of expertise (ie organic food and natural food policy) then he needs to produce the goods.

  On Boycotting Whole Foods won’t help posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago 27 Responses

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  I apologize.  I should have read my message more closely before I posted.  I have several teachers in my family and I know that they get as little or less time to eat than the students.  I also know that they are not the ones determining the lunch periods.  I was directing my comments at the administrators and state regulators that set these idiotic rules.  My experience is that they are not as a rule eating twenty minute or less lunches in a school cafeteria and are less than empathetic towards those that do.  And I don't imagine that they have rats eating their lunches, either.  Disgusting.

  And, yes, 100 minutes of math without a break is ridiculous.  And I like math.  Even in college classes more than 80 minutes almost always had break periods.

  On Let's (re)do school lunch posted 3 months ago 18 Responses

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  When I was growing up we only had _20_ minutes for lunch, most of which was spent in line.  I remember that there was a comment about that in the local paper and I swear that the person who was responding in favor of these ridiculously short lunch periods managed to say both 1) if they had more time than that they would just get in trouble and 2) all these kids have appaling table manners.  Duh!  Maybe if we didn't have to wolf down our food our table manners would be better.  But we also would have  been more likely to notice how dreadful our food was.  I think the solution is simple--this is a case where what is good for the geese is good for the gander.  Change the rules so that all the school district employees, right to the top, have the same lunch breaks as the students and not a minute more.  If you can pressure them to eat the same food so much the better.

   

  On Let's (re)do school lunch posted 3 months ago 18 Responses

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  RE: Energy efficient and safe, too

  I agree with swan--there needs to be some major retrofitting of school buildings just to make them fit for habitation.  Some of the most uncomfortable buildings I have been in have been schools.  While it might seem counter-intuitive in light of the push for energy efficiency, I would also like to see a push to require that classrooms have some minimum exposure to sunlight and fresh air.  Whatever toxics are in the buildings are only made worse when there is no air exchange with the outside.  And it's just depressing (clinically for some) not to see daylight for hours at a time.

  AmyLynnOn Obama pledges to use stimulus to make schools and public buildings more energy efficient posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 7 Responses