The Fast Food Fight: Restaurants Won't Be Hurt By Obamacare ...

Yesterday it was Papa John?s, today it?s White Castle, home of the slider and what seems to be a pretty equitable health insurance plan for employees, at least by fast-food industry standards. All the same, White Castle executives are making bogus claims about how Obamacare will hurt their business.

Mother Jones profiles White Castle?s claims in the story Will Obamacare Kill Off White Castle? The story is well worth a read and focuses on White Castle?s history of political giving (mostly to Republicans), the health care they offer (which in most cases would meet the standards set by Obamacare already) and how the fast food chain has used its connections with the National Restaurant Association to push bogus claims.

Take [White Castle VP Jamie] Richardson?s claim that Obamacare will cut White Castle?s profits in half. This charge is based on a single provision in the law, a requirement that larger companies that provide no insurance, expensive insurance, or lousy insurance pay a $3,000 per employee penalty. White Castle, because it already provides insurance, would only have to pay the $3,000 penalty for full-time employees whose out-of-pocket premium costs exceed 9.5 percent of their household income. White Castle employs very few?and perhaps zero?people who fit that description. Even then, the company would only have to pay if those employees purchased health insurance from an outside health insurance market, known as an exchange, and received tax credits to do so.

Attacks on the law coming out of the restaurant industry are starting to fall into two categories: exaggerated claims that the law is going to hurt business or tactical recognition that the companies care little for the welfare of the employees whose work provides their profits. The Mother Jones article demonstrates that.

White Castle, to its credit, does provide decent health care for its long-term, full-time employees. It appears to be making the exaggerated claims based purely on ideology.

Source: http://healthcareforamericanow.org/2012/08/08/fast-food-fight/

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