Whole Foods is supposedly a great company to be employed with.

Unless you’re a big fat fatty, in which case Whole Foods would like to remind you that you’re less valuable to them than your thin co-workers. While Whole Foods offers a 30% discount to workers who are skinny- with a BMI below a certain number- if you’ve got junk in the trunk, the rate of your discount plummets 10% to a paltry 20%.

Who are the marketing whizzes behind this divisive and cruel policy? Why it’s none other than CEO John Mackey, who, when not fighting health care reform, is busy astroturfing it up on internet forums. Mackey helpfully gets down and douchey to his staff, in a letter:

Mr Mackey said the company hoped the programme would be “empowering and fun for team members who enjoy a challenge”, and that the company was not taking anything away from workers who chose not to participate.

“These new higher discounts are incentives to encourage our team members to be healthier and to lower our healthcare costs,” he said. “We believe this is a win-win programme that will help both our team members and our shareholders.”

Being as limited food budgets are known to increase obesity rates, this strategy is retarded. However, as no one working in retail can afford to shop at Whole Foods, I think the discount thing isn’t going to affect Whole Foods employees one way or the other, so it kind of cancels out except for being totally judgmental and insulting. It is unclear whether staff will be further incentivized by having co-workers chant “boom, boom, boom” under their breath as fat employees walk by or having POS terminals pop up helpful messages like, “do you really need a whole pound of organic cocoa nubs? Well, if you think so…” during staff purchases.

A 33 year-old morbidly obese man with no health coverage was returned untreated to a recliner in his home in March after a knee injury.

Daniel Webb became unable to walk or leave his home after the injury, for which he was unable to receive treatment. Webb’s wife Ada tried to no avail to obtain disability and medical coverage for her husband, who remained in the chair for nearly nine months, covered in sores and human excrement. Webb was removed from the home by EMS workers who had to cut a hole in Webb’s trailer to move his body. He died of cardiac arrest within hours of removal from the chair.

EMS workers have said that Webb weighed between 800-900 lbs, but his wife Ada puts the figure closer to 500 lbs. Ada Webb met her husband on MySpace, and Daniel Webb died on what would have been their second anniversary. While she told press it was the worst anniversary she could imagine, Daniel’s was far better because he was with Jesus. The clip below shows Ada Webb talking to a reporter about the difficulties the Webb family faced in treating Daniel.

[Source]

This doesn’t come as much of a shock really, but health insurance companies in Britain, Canada and the U.S. have invested at least $4.4 billion in tobacco companies.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has confirmed that at least $4.4 billion in health insurance company funds are invested in companies whose subsidiaries produce tobacco in the form of cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.

According to the study, US insurer Prudential Financial has $US264.3 million dollars invested among three US tobacco companies, including Reynolds America and Philip Morris.

Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial, which sells life, disability and health insurance, has a stock portfolio with more than one billion dollars in two tobacco companies, including $US890 million in Philip Morris.

Tobacco is the leading cause of lung cancer as well as a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, pulmonary disease and other types of cancer. According to the World Health Organisation, it is a contributing factor in 5.4 million deaths a year.

So, all you non-smokers out there, how do you feel about your health insurance premiums being invested in companies that produce products that are slowly killing you?

[Source: News.com.au]

That wacky mob PETA, fresh from “flouring” Lindsay Lohan in Paris has sent a letter to BlueCross BlueShield health insurance company in Vermont on behalf of their 2 million members asking that health insurance premiums be raised for meat eaters and reduced for vegetarians.

They state that meat eating is linked to some of America’s “deadliest diseases” and that agreeing to this request will result in the company saving money,  which we all know PETA cares about.

PETA argues that a a cut in insurance premiums would give people an “incentive” to do without meat and that will make them healthier.  The letter also warns of the danger of E coli outbreak.  I would be more worried about catching the outbreak of smug, superiority that normally accompanies being a vegetarian and PETA member.  

BlueCross BlueShield said that discrimination on the grounds of eating preferences was illegal in every state. They obviously didn’t feel the need to add the bit about how they couldn’t give a crap about what PETA thinks anyway.

Via ecosalon