yelp.com/republique-los-angeles
Obamacare is going to cost just about everyone—and some people don’t want to hear that. One restaurant owner in Los Angeles is making it clear that providing health benefits for his employees is something his customers help pay for.
According to a local news story, the owner and chef of Republique has decided to be transparent about his health care costs, prompting predictable ire. On the popular Yelp website that allows customers to review restaurants and other establishments, one reviewer wrote: “It’s not my responsibility to take care of YOUR employees’ healthcare…that’s YOUR job.”
Thanks to the employer mandate delay, this restaurant owner (who has more than 50 full-time workers) isn’t mandated to provide coverage until 2015 or 2016, but apparently he has decided to offer health coverage to his workers earlier than the new rules mandate. His health insurance “surcharge” is a reminder that health coverage is not free and, in many instances, the cost will be passed on to consumers in one way or another.
An outcry from businesses persuaded the White House to postpone the employer mandate from kicking in until after this fall’s midterm elections. But this doesn’t mean that this issue is going away.
Other restaurant and business owners with 50 or more full-time workers will have to incorporate the costs of health insurance into their operating costs as well—or try to avoid both the cost of coverage and Obamacare’s penalty by reducing workers’ hours to less than 30 hours a week, as many have already done.
