Low-income workersthe kind of people likely to be working as servers at Dennysreally will see huge benefits from the law. And the kind of people who own dozens of chain restaurant franchises really will suffer, at least a bit.
The main issue facing chain restaurant owners is the laws employer responsibility provision. If youre a small employer with fewer than 25 employees, the Affordable Care Act is extremely generous to you and youll get special subsidies to help make an insurance plan for your workers affordable. But if you have over 50 employees, then its another matter.If everyone on your payroll already gets group health insurance, youre in the clear. If they dont, but theyre all paid enough to buy insurance on the new insurance exchanges without a subsidy, then youre also in the clear. But if youre employing low-wage workers wholl get subsidies for their new insurance plans, then youre going to get taxed to the tune of $2,000 a worker.[/B]
For a few categories of employer, this is supposed to encourage businesses to offer health insurance. But in many cases, especially in the food service sector, itll be much cheaper to pay the tax than to add a more generous benefits package. Naturally employers dont like that.
Indeed, evidence from San Francisco suggests we should be very suspicious of firms pleading poverty as they charge surcharges. The city adopted pioneering universal health care legislation that, like Obamacare, imposed higher costs on some classes of employers. Many of them responded with special health care surcharges. Upon investigation, much of this surcharge money just ended up in the pockets of business owners, as with any other price increase.
Maybe specifically blaming Obama for price hikes with a special surcharge will make customers feel better about paying more, or maybe whining will drive liberal customers away. But theres no reason to take this any more seriously than any other marketing gimmick.
