Howard Schultz on Human Needs: Community and Health Care

I keep coming across inspiring references to Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks.  Last week, I discovered a recent interview in KNOW Magazine entitled The Art of Creating Passionate Consumers, which included the following quotes:

• … consumers are demanding more. They want products or services that create a powerful and enduring emotional connection.
• The fracturing of our humanity, fracturing of trust in public institutions and corporations has created significant cynicism. However, people want to be a part of something that they can believe in. They want to be associated with a product or service that they can rely on. Companies that are serving these emotional and human needs of the customers will really stand out amidst this cynical backdrop.
• … we are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee. The equity of the Starbucks brand is the humanity and intimacy of what goes on in the communities that exist in each and every location. We continually are reminded of the powerful need and desire for human contact and for community, which is a new, powerful force in determining consumer choices.

And today, I saw a reference in the Worthwhile Magazine blog to a Business week article about Schultz’ recent testimony before the U.S. Senate on health care costs:

Starbucks Corp. will spend more on health insurance for its employees this year than on raw materials needed to brew its coffee, the company’s chairman said Wednesday.

Howard Schultz, whose Seattle-based company provides health care coverage to employees who work at least 20 hours a week, said Starbucks has faced double-digit increases in insurance costs each of the last four years.

"It’s completely non-sustainable," he said.

…

Schultz said Starbucks’ benefits policy is a key reason it has low employee turnover and high productivity.

He declined to endorse any specific legislation, saying his goal was to raise awareness of the problem. But whatever solution is adopted, he said, "Every single American needs to have access to health insurance — full-stop."

I like the reference to comprehensiveness, but what I think we really need is universally guaranteed access to a basic level of health care, not simply access to [private] health insurance, which can be declined or withdrawn based on business policies rather than the commonwealth — or, perhaps, commonhealth — of our citizens.  Riffing off one of his quotes in the KNOW Magazine interview:  Governments that are serving these emotional and human needs of the citizens will really stand out amidst this cynical backdrop.