Restaurant owner says he will impose 5% Obamacare surcharge on bills

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2122412.html

He says: "I have no choice, I have to pass this on to customers."

And he's not alone. A number of other restaurants, most notably Papa John's have also indicated they will have to raise prices or lower employee hours (or both) to deal with costs required under the ACA starting next year.

To me, this is completely ridiculous. Call me anti-Capitalist if you want to but I believe that businesses should be REQUIRED to provide a minimum level of benefits for workers, ESPECIALLY in a place like the United States which does NOT have single payer.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Yeah, and Papa John says he couldn't afford the 14 cents per pizza. *rolls eyes* Has anyone SEEN his house? It's literally a CASTLE. With it's OWN golf course, and a 22 car garage!

Ugh.

[Greenday]

Yeah, and Papa John says he couldn't afford the 14 cents per pizza. *rolls eyes* Has anyone SEEN his house? It's literally a CASTLE. With it's OWN golf course, and a 22 car garage!

Ugh.

Might have to make it a 9 hole course and a 20 car garage. Poor guy.

[Mytical]

The business owners seriously do not expect repercussions from this? What is sad is that IF business takes a dive because of how they treat their employees/etc..then all those people will lose their jobs because of some idiot who hit his head one too many times.

[BlaqueKatt]

Yeah, and Papa John says he couldn't afford the 14 cents per pizza. *rolls eyes* Has anyone SEEN his house? It's literally a CASTLE. With it's OWN golf course, and a 22 car garage!

Ugh.

But he could afford to give away 2 million free pizzas for an NFL promotion , but I guess that's different somehow?

[Seifer]

I guess the CEO can't be expected to take a small pay cut in order to afford health insurance for all of his/her employees. Better pass it on to customers!

[Daskinor]

People who collect cats are crazy, but people who collect massive amounts of money and pull this shit over a small % increase in overhead costs are not?

I don't get it.

[violiav]

One of my friends posted on Facebook that she opposes tax increases on the wealthy because they give us jobs. I'm still waiting for that paycheck from P.Diddy! Jk.

[s_stabeler]

To those criticizing the management that took this decision: they might not have had much choice. The directors of a business are bound by a fidicury duty to shareholders. Had they absorbed the cost, it's possible they would have been fired by their shareholders.

On the other hand, they didn't have to specifically call it an Obamacare surcharge. Just put prices up and blame increased costs.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

To those criticizing the management that took this decision: they might not have had much choice. The directors of a business are bound by a fidicury duty to shareholders. Had they absorbed the cost, it's possible they would have been fired by their shareholders.

On the other hand, they didn't have to specifically call it an Obamacare surcharge. Just put prices up and blame increased costs.

So why can't the CEO's that make a ton of money off their business take a pay cut?

That's what we're criticizing. In the Papa John's example, he has a castle for a house, 22 car garage, a moat with a draw bridge and a private golf course. But he's trying to tell me that he'll have to cut employee hours because of this?

I call bullshit. I will continue to call bullshit until someone can prove to me that man needs all that stuff and that he wouldn't be able to continue to afford it even if he had to take a cut in the form of 14 cents per pizza.

[violiav]

But the poor man might not be able to maintain his moat anymore!!11!! Woe is the plight of the idle rich!

ETA: Forbes article Papa J receives a compensation package worth well over 2 million dollars and it has increased every year.

ETA2: WTF? He has a limo turntable!!!

[EricKei]

Isn't this what the Delivery Charge is for? Just bump it up by a quarter. BAM! Problem solved.

Keep in mind, tho, that the overwhelming majority of minimum-wage workers don't get benefits at all (at least, pre-Obamacare). I think that maybe some creative accounting (read: figuring out how to write off most of the added expense) would be a better solution.

On the other hand...This was really easy to see coming. More to the point, IIRC, many buinesses said, or at least implied, that they would either be cutting hours for most workers (to below the "no insurance paid by company" threshhold, 30 hours???), and/or raising prices, and/or just firing workers en masse because of this only mildly-popular piece of legislation. Many of these things have happened already. No business is going to just absorb costs this massive, whether they were "prepared" for this eventuality or not.

Naturally, the ones that are proposing or doing the most drastic things are the ones who forecast the End of Days every time someone tries to bump up the Minimum Wage, because they were using MW as a "standard wage" rather than as a "absolute bottom wage to use only for a few months" pay rate.

[HYHYBT]

The sole purpose is to push customers into supporting the business owners' political views. Which *ought* to be too transparent to work, but I'm not holding my breath. (I'm also sticking with Pizza Hut for the time being, though that won't last.)

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

We wouldn't have BS like this with single payer.

[mikoyan29]

One of my friends posted on Facebook that she opposes tax increases on the wealthy because they give us jobs. I'm still waiting for that paycheck from P.Diddy! Jk.

Sometimes they do...sometimes they take them away because things aren't going so well.....