James Nye @ UK Mail:
President Obama’s election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power – but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.
Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny’s and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and will reduce his employees’ hours.
With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is ‘the only alternative. I’ve got to pass on the cost to the customer.’
The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, ‘that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.’
‘I think it’s a terrible thing. It’s ridiculous that the maximum hours we can give people is 28 hours a week instead of 40,’ said Metz to the Huffington Post.
‘It’s going to force my employees to go out and get a second job.’
Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.
The program mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours a week are covered under their employers health insurance plan, chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are already considering reduced worker hours.
‘Obviously, I’d love to cover all our employees under that insurance,’ said Metz.
‘But to pay $5,000 per employee would cost us $175,000 per restaurant and unfortunately, most of our restaurants don’t make $175,000 a year. I can’t afford it.’
The left doesn’t want to believe that their upcoming “free healthcare” isn’t actually free and that it will have far ranging negative consequences . No, it’s all those greedy capitalists telling lies and getting richer.
ObamaCare costs $1.79 per hour per employee IF the employer buys a the required coverage.
But for full-time employees whose employer has over 50 workers and no insurance coverage it STILL costs $.98 per hour as the penalty/tax.
Cutting workers’ hours to less than full time (used to be 30, but Obama named 30 as FULL TIME) means no $1.79 and no $.98.
It also means more individual workers.
Of course most of these new hires will also be part-time.
So, keep watch on that U-6 unemployment number.
The one we usually see on the news will be coming down.
@Nan G:
Changing the description of “Full time” is an evil genius move by Obama. It means less hours and pay for lower wage workers (most likely a 6-hour workday), but some businesses will need hire more workers to cover. Which will look good for Obama’s numbers. I see a nice round four shift schedule for 24 hour convenience. But some of these workers will be able to work at two different job sites a day for a 12+ hour workday in their need to survive and pay for their ever increasing taxation and Sandra Fluke’s contraception. Getting employers to schedule them so that they will have travel time between jobs could be a pain, unless they can train their bodies to a “6-hours on, 6-hours off, 6-hours on, 6-hours off” work schedule. A few weeks of that will work well towards turning them into mindless serfs.
There is nothing I love doing more than working 6 days a week so that I can pay for other peoples stuff….
Granted I am salary and I run a large fab shop so the days and hours go with the territory but there will come a time when people will just give up on the “concept” of being self sufficient and go for the “provided at no cost to them gov’t bennies”. I avoid using the word “free” because nothing is free.
I applaud every business owner out there who is being honest about the additional “costs” being piled upon them by this administration. People need to hear it and feel it so maybe next time they might think a little harder before entering the voting booth.
@HardRight #1 – Funny you say that..I stopped in a store last week, two young guys behind the counter…both talking about ‘having’ healthcare. The first guy says to the other ‘you got health care?’ the second guy says ‘yea, man for the most part’…the first guy says ‘yea, well I got…will get “that” Obamacare… yea man, and I can stay on my parents policy till I’m 26… yea, and its FREE TOO’… OMG!!! OMG! OMG!?!!
There are times I cannot hold back, and this was one of them….I ‘had’ to say to the first young guy…I am sorry if you ‘think’ that it is “Free”… it’s not free…sweetheart, there is NOTHING FREE in this world…you need to know that… Reaction?? Blank Stare and no comment…[I guess no one ever told him that before..] lol AND OMG!!! Let them [him] wait till he is 27!!! Hope he gets a better job by then…
I feel bad, they were sold a bunch of LIES…and Leftist socialist propaganda….but then, they are your ‘average’ young [sponges] voters who have selective ‘hearing’ and all they heard was “FREE”…
To the best of my knowledge the laws of supply and demand also apply to healthcare. If Obamacare is going to increase demand, and there will be no increase in supply it will only get worse. In a normal market the supply would increase to meet demand, but Obamacare is the one thing that can thwart that by controlling the suppliers.
This era is probably the first when so many made so much that they could afford to relinquish part of their fortunes by doing things that are contrary to normal business interests—like closing profitable branches of their businesses—just to prove a political point. Either that, or, they were planning to lay-off these employees, or close these businesses, anyway, and decided to wait until after the election, so they’d have a political imperative to blame it on.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Brilliant analysis as always Lib1. And Hostess is closing just to piss off the Unions. /sarc
Thanks for proving my point liberal#2. The left is not capabale of facing reality.
It couldn’t possibly be that business owners can’t afford the additional costs. No, it has to be greed and ideology. Liberalism really is a mental illness.
That’s ok. The non-loony populace will re-learn the no-free-lunches rule. We’ll see how they vote then.