Business Rejects Obamacare

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

Elections, as it is often said, have consequences. As a result of the president’s reelection, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will be fully implemented. Unsurprisingly, several businesses are looking for ways to avoid the costs associated with the law. Just as unsurprisingly, American leftists consider such efforts to keep one’s business profitable–or solvent–unseemly.

Zane Tankel, chairman and CEO of Apple-Metro, an Applebee’s New York-area franchise, explains the obvious. ”We’ve calculated it will [cost] some millions of dollars across our system,” Tankel told Fox Business Network last Thursday. ”So what does that say–that says we won’t build more restaurants. We won’t hire more people.” Apple-Metro runs 40 Applebee’s restaurants and employs from 80 to 300 people at each of its locations.

Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of Jimmy John’s sub franchise, echoed that sentiment. Like a number of smaller businesses, he is considering cutting employee hours to 28, to get under the Obamacare cap of 30 hours that defines full-time employment. Under the law, a full-time employee must be given healthcare insurance, or the company must pay a $2000 fine, if it fails to do so. Part-time employees don’t have to be covered. “We have to do that, said Liautaud. ”There’s no other way we can survive it, because we think it will cost us 50 cents a sandwich. That’s just the actual cost. If you have 40 or 50 employees at a restaurant, and the penalty is $2,000, and you’re going to pay an $80,000 or $100,000 penalty, there goes the profit in your restaurant,” he added.

[Rokke]

Ironically, the people most likely to lose their jobs over this debacle are in the Obama voter set.