Hey Mackey, you're a swine.. and a pretty smart one too

John Mackey is not an evil guy. I had a look at his op ed piece in the wall street journal (link here) and I'd just like to make it clear that he really does mean well. He has good intentions. I'm positive he truly believes that a single payer system is detrimental to the state of health care in the United States.
Whether he's right about that or not is one thing, but he brings up some great points that should be address regardless of a single payer system:

* Reforming tort law - This is nothing shy of a great idea. The US is known for frivolous lawsuits and a general lack of personal responsibility. Fixing the problems here would reduce the cost of malpractice insurance and those savings should be get passed on to the consumer (eventually).There are also a number of side benefits like keeping doctors out of court rooms rather than say I don't know, a doctor's office? and how about freeing up the court system?

* Equalizing tax laws - Separate health insurance is always going to exist, and it's absolutely ridiculous how much it costs to insure yourself in this country. Without the tax benefits provided by employee programs, it's hardly surprising that many of those without jobs that provide these programs do not have it.

Despite having some very good insights into the system, Mackey still proves himself to be something of a jackass. He seems to believe that not only do we not have the right to health care (supposedly guaranteed by the Declaration of Human Rights), but that people without health care should rely on charity,

[The government should] 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.

By relying on charity, you effectively put needy people in a situation where they have to literally beg for their lives in order to survive.

It's not too hard to consider an unfortunate person in Mackey's health care system suffering from some condition that requires costly surgery or medication. Imagine now that he does not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. Well, that's alright because healthcare is cheaper now and an responsible adult would purchase insurance especially if they could afford it. Of course, Mackey states in an earilier point,  "[We should] repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover," and as you might imagine, it would be unconscionable for an insurance company to mislead customers into purchasing higher rate, lower coverage policies, or deny or delay valid claims. You're right, Mackey, that would never happen..
The bottom line is that when you don't guarantee health care as a right, you have to be okay with saying that some people can live and some can die. We could make the health care system far better than it is at the moment, but at the end of the day it always comes back to that.