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Papa John's CEO: Obamacare likely to raise costs, employee's hours being cut [W:387]

The short answer is - the same way that the automobile insurance companies do. Think about it - your car insurance doesn't pay for you to fill up your gas tank. It doesn't pay for your oil changes. If it did pay for these things - would you really care what the price of gas was? Would you get the economy gas when you could get the "Chevron Silver" for 10 cents more and (according to the cartoon on the pump) help clean your engine? You would, and you wouldn't care about the cost, because you aren't paying for it. But auto insurance doesn't operate like that - it's insurance. It pays for when something unexpected and/or catastrophic happens - when you get into an accident. That's what insurance is, that's how it is supposed to function. But for some reason we expect our health insurance to pay for the equivalent of tanks of gas and oil changes. And so people don't care how much the extra shot costs, they don't really care if the test is redundant, and sure, supersize my hospital room as much as my insurance company will pay for.

We don't allow people to make price conscious decisions with healthcare, and that is why health insurance is so expensive. Because none of us make price conscious decisions, all of us cost more, and so the price of insuring us rises.

High-deductible, catastrophic care health insurance is A) affordable and B) actually insurance. It has the additional virtue of causing people to make most medical decisions (which are neither catastrophic nor emergency) in a price-conscious manner, while at the same time making sure that if little johnny get's a broken arm, or your spouse get's cancer, that you are covered. When paired with Health Savings Accounts, which allow you to pay for regular maintenance-style healthcare with pre-tax dollars, the system can work very well indeed.
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This is the way to go. Makes health insurance actually....gasp....insurance.
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
When a new law is passed that raises costs on employers, those employers are going to pass the cost onto someone else. They can either raise prices or reduce the amount they pay for employees. Businesses are out to make a profit. To expect them to react to rising costs in any other manner is dumb.
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So where did I say otherwise?

My point is BEFORE the election our friendly pie man attempted to influence voters by threatening a pay for pie price hike of a whooping 14 cents.

AFTER the election he now threatens his employees with reduced hours instead of the paltry price hike. Make this VERY clear, he isn't reducing the employee pay to cover the healthcare cost, an hour or two would do that. He is dropping their pay to avoid covering them under a plan he doesn't agree with politically not to mention he didn't want to cover them even with the much 'treasured' private healthcare coverage.

Great man... :roll:

I'd pay 14 cents more for Papa Johns... it is a great pie. I will not however support petty, unsavory punishing of his employees for an election loss.

PLENTY of other pizzas out there.
 
PirateMk1 said:
Dont need any expert to tell me what I already know. I am feeling the effects of this election today right now. I am feeling the effects of obama care because my premiums have been skyrocketing and I pay annually. I could care less about experts, I am the expert of my life and Obamas policies and Obamacare are expensive and suck.
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Yeah, I have patients in those personal care homes that are shutting down. Their families are about at panic level now. I don't know where they will go. There is nothin else in this area.
 
Maenad said:
Yeah, I have patients in those personal care homes that are shutting down. Their families are about at panic level now. I don't know where they will go. There is nothin else in this area.
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They may eventually find something but its gona cost em unfortunately.
 
PirateMk1 said:
They may eventually find something but its gona cost em unfortunately.
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They will not find anything in this area. Their families will have to take them out of the area for care, causing a greater burden on their famlies. And these folk really are too much to be cared for at home, though I have only one whose family could easily afford help to come in.

What's happening is wrong. I have supported a national health care policy for people who work but don't have access to care my entire career. The sick, lame, and lazy are all covered. So are the elderly and the veterans. This small population of working people should not be left out of the picture. But to put this on the backs of small businesses is just wrong. It will cripple our economy.
 
In the 90s in TN doctors and hospitals banned together to form large corporations in order to survive TennCare. But doctors have a network that most small businesses don't have. The people this involves will not think of combining their business with other small businesses to make large corporations.
 
Maenad said:
In the 90s in TN doctors and hospitals banned together to form large corporations in order to survive TennCare. But doctors have a network that most small businesses don't have. The people this involves will not think of combining their business with other small businesses to make large corporations.
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Farmers in my neck of the woods got something called a coop. Its basically facilities and coperation that the member farmer got together to spread the costs of equipment ect. Thats something that may happen here maybe.
 
PirateMk1 said:
Farmers in my neck of the woods got something called a coop. Its basically facilities and coperation that the member farmer got together to spread the costs of equipment ect. Thats something that may happen here maybe.
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Well, farmers like doctors have a network which makes that easy. Small businesses, even of the same type, likely don't. The only network I can think of is the civic clubs and not all of them are going to be members. But this will affect farmers even with a 'coop.' I live in an agricultural area, and most farmers here use migrant and seasonal workers. To expect them to insure all of them for health care is ludicrous.
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

cpwill said:
So long as we are willing to accept a poorer future in which our elderly lack access to healthcare, yes. There is a reason that every single-payer program comes along with a bureaucracy whose job it is to decide when people are no longer cost-effective.
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Death panels? Really?




Medicare is currently slated to go bankrupt in 12 years. How in the world is adding hundreds of millions of people to its' rolls likely to improve that?



Again, Medicare is about to go bankrupt, and take Social Security and the rest of the Federal government with it. It is not a model we want to build on.


:D I'm glad you asked.

The short answer is - the same way that the automobile insurance companies do. Think about it - your car insurance doesn't pay for you to fill up your gas tank. It doesn't pay for your oil changes. If it did pay for these things - would you really care what the price of gas was? Would you get the economy gas when you could get the "Chevron Silver" for 10 cents more and (according to the cartoon on the pump) help clean your engine? You would, and you wouldn't care about the cost, because you aren't paying for it. But auto insurance doesn't operate like that - it's insurance. It pays for when something unexpected and/or catastrophic happens - when you get into an accident. That's what insurance is, that's how it is supposed to function. But for some reason we expect our health insurance to pay for the equivalent of tanks of gas and oil changes. And so people don't care how much the extra shot costs, they don't really care if the test is redundant, and sure, supersize my hospital room as much as my insurance company will pay for.

We don't allow people to make price conscious decisions with healthcare, and that is why health insurance is so expensive. Because none of us make price conscious decisions, all of us cost more, and so the price of insuring us rises.

High-deductible, catastrophic care health insurance is A) affordable and B) actually insurance. It has the additional virtue of causing people to make most medical decisions (which are neither catastrophic nor emergency) in a price-conscious manner, while at the same time making sure that if little johnny get's a broken arm, or your spouse get's cancer, that you are covered. When paired with Health Savings Accounts, which allow you to pay for regular maintenance-style healthcare with pre-tax dollars, the system can work very well indeed.
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Insurance with deductibles (and this includes HMO's now, I have a deductible) means we don't pay for gassing up and oil changes now. My HSA covers my out of pocket deductible. So, that's something we already have. Still, individuals cannot afford insurance.

These aren't individual experience (except for the last one), but when we look at the reform efforts that have sought to put price-consciousness back into play, we see that they have been very successful:


Indiana offered HSA's, which have patients save money in tax-free accounts (where it grows and remains theirs forever and ever unless theys pend it) matched with high deductible plans to it's employees. Employees began to respond to price signals, and medical costs per patient were reduced by 33% and expenditures to the state were reduced by 11%.

Safeway has instituted a program that gave financial incentives to people who engaged in healthy behavior by allowing price signals in the insurance side of the market to work (Indiana worked on the medical side), and saw it's per-captia health care costs remain flat from 2005-2009; when most companies saw theirs jump by 38%.

Whole Foods instituted HSA's, and let's the employees choose what they want the company to fund. This institutes price pressure on the medical side (WF covers the high-deductible plan 100%), and their CEO points out that as a result Whole Foods' per-capita costs are much lower than typical insurance programs, while maintaining employee satisfaction.

Medicare Part D utilized price pressure on the insurance side, and saw expenditures come in at 40% UNDER the original estimates - the only such government program in history to do so.

Wendy's instituted HSA's, and saw the number of their employees who got preventative and annual checkup care climb even as they saw claims decrease by 14% (in one year).

Wal-Mart's low cost clinics and prescriptions save us oodles of cash. Wal-Mart reports that "half of their clinic patients report that they are uninsured" and that "if it were not for [Wal-Marts'] clinics they would haven't gotten care - or they would have gone to an emergency room". Walmart - reducing costs and expenditures.

Dr Robert Berry runs a practice called PATMOS (payment at time of service). he doesn't take insurance at all - but simply posts the prices of his services. By removing the cost of dealing with mutliple insurance agencies, medicare, and medicaid, the prices he is able to list are one half to ONE THIRD of standard.
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Ok, so, Indiana is a state, but there are still uninsured there.

Safeway, Whole Foods, Wendy's and Walmart are all employers, which doesn't answer my original question, why should employers be saddled with administrating insurance?

Dr. Berry sounds promising, but I have a feeling, it's not that simple to cover all of the uninsured or needs of high cost, non catastrophic or emergency issues, joint replacement, back surgery etc...

I'm not dismissing it. It looks good on the surface, but he treats in a city of 16,000. How does it translate to bigger or massive cities? What of our seniors? Living on fixed income with the constant need for care, how do we treat them if these clinics cannot/will not accept medicare?
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

The sad part about health insurance is that it's the same as every other "Shared" system, some people will drag down the others. Not *all* of it is Obama's/liberals fault. No doubt the hardcore liberals could make it 100x worse, but I hope they are never really taken seriously.

For example, if you are young and male and healthy, you subsidize other people's helathcare already. Does that make them parasites? If it's a voluntary system, not really. Where government and the public will have fun over the next century is defining what it is to be naturally unhealthy (genetics, gender, age), and what it is to be voluntarily unhealthy (smokers, obese, no exercise, risky behaviors, don't get preventative care, etc.), and deciding how they seperate those out to be "fair" and to ensure their meddling isn't creating incentives for unhealthy lifestyles, and discincentive for healthy ones. They already do this to a degree, but as it gets consolidated and we have fewer options, it will rise in importance.
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

I thought that papa johns was mostly a franchise operation.so how would a pizza franchise be effected by the ACA?
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

Whipsnade said:
I thought that papa johns was mostly a franchise operation.so how would a pizza franchise be effected by the ACA?
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The corporate-owned franchises would be effected. The individual franchises would only be effected if they met the 50-employee rule.
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

MaggieD said:
The corporate-owned franchises would be effected. The individual franchises would only be effected if they met the 50-employee rule.
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according to papa john's the vast majority of the restaurants that carry the papa john name are franchise operations; sooo, how many pizza opps where you live have more than thirty employees?And if you happen to dig up the rare bird that has more than thirty,how many of that number are part-time?
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

Whipsnade said:
according to papa john's the vast majority of the restaurants that carry the papa john name are franchise operations; sooo, how many pizza opps where you live have more than thirty employees?And if you happen to dig up the rare bird that has more than thirty,how many of that number are part-time?
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You'll get no argument from me. I'm with you.
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

Whipsnade said:
I thought that papa johns was mostly a franchise operation.so how would a pizza franchise be effected by the ACA?
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John's cruising for political currency and a scapegoat. According to insiders, most of these changes were happening anyway.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
If you'll remember, the crash happened before obama even took office.
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Of course it did but it's a matter of cause and effect, which don't occur simultaneously.
CDS's and subprime lending were pumping up the housing bubble for many, many years, this wasn't something that happened overnight.
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See above.
Though yes, legislation like this that obama is pushing to force subprime lending is leading us right back down the same road and dampening our recovery.

Some people refuse to learn from history.
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It's the electorate who failed to learn.
 
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Grant said:
Of course it did but it's a matter of cause and effect, which occur simultaneously.


See above.

It's the electorate who failed to learn.
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So you're sticking with the "Obama created the 2008 crisis" argument?

I guess you can't argue with crazy.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
So you're sticking with the "Obama created the 2008 crisis" argument?

I guess you can't argue with crazy.
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You know how to use quotes, right? Why are you responding to me with quotes of something i never said?

This incredible habit of leftists to see things that aren't there or who fail to see things that are there, is becoming a major concern.
 
Grant said:
You know how to use quotes, right? Why are you responding to me with quotes of something i never said?

This incredible habit of leftists to see things that aren't there or who fail to see things that are there, is becoming a major concern.
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Leftist? You must be new around here, son. Or is that just your go-to insult when you're angry?

I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd flip flop then claim you never said it.

I tried to explain to you in very simple terms how the financial crisis occurred, at which point you replied with:

Grant said:
It was the government who not only encouraged banks to lend mortgages to those who couldn't afford them, they actually passed laws forcing banks to lend money to people who would not otherwise be eligible for them through the traditional means. In fact Barrack Obama, during his 'community organizing' days, was one of those who brought a class action suit against City Bank (I believe it was) for not allowing sufficient mortgages to minority applicants. Again, it was the government's attempts at social engineering that was the source of the problem, and there will naturally more of that on the way.
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I tried then to bring you back onto topic by pointing out that the crisis happened before obama took office. You went back to blaming obama.

Listen, I can not f***ing stand obama, seriously. He's a horrible, horrible president. But I'm not so ridiculously uneducated as to try to blame the origins of the financial crisis on him.
 
Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours

Whipsnade said:
according to papa john's the vast majority of the restaurants that carry the papa john name are franchise operations; sooo, how many pizza opps where you live have more than thirty employees?And if you happen to dig up the rare bird that has more than thirty,how many of that number are part-time?
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If the same entity owns more than one franchise, it counts as a single business.
 
Grant said:
All it takes is to look at the past four years to see what the next 'flexible four' might be like..
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I am pleased with Obama's work over the past four years. He got more done than I expected given the obstacles in his way.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Leftist? You must be new around here, son. Or is that just your go-to insult when you're angry?
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I don;t care in which direction you lean. I don't like to be misquoted or having anyone make untrue claims about me. that's the point. Stop acting like a leftist and you won't suffer the accusations.

I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd flip flop then claim you never said it.
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Here is what I said.
It was the government who not only encouraged banks to lend mortgages to those who couldn't afford them, they actually passed laws forcing banks to lend money to people who would not otherwise be eligible for them through the traditional means. In fact Barrack Obama, during his 'community organizing' days, was one of those who brought a class action suit against City Bank (I believe it was) for not allowing sufficient mortgages to minority applicants. Again, it was the government's attempts at social engineering that was the source of the problem, and there will naturally more of that on the way.
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It was the government. Barack Obama was one of those who brought a class action suit against Citi Bank.Again, it was the government's attempt at social engineering that was the source of the problem. That is what I said.

You responded with "So you're sticking with the "Obama created the 2008 crisis" argument?

Now where did i say that? Can you see it anywhere?


I tried then to bring you back onto topic by pointing out that the crisis happened before obama took office. You went back to blaming obama.
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Quotes. Please use quotes. Can you do that? I don;t want you to reinterpret what I said into something quite different.

Listen, I can not f***ing stand obama, seriously. He's a horrible, horrible president. But I'm not so ridiculously uneducated as to try to blame the origins of the financial crisis on him.
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See above! If you can find where i blamed BHO for the origins of the financial crisis please point it out with some quotes.
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Hairytic said:
I am pleased with Obama's work over the past four years. He got more done than I expected given the obstacles in his way.
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Right. Trillions added to the debt, the "stimulus package" lost in space, people going without homes or electricity on the east Coast because of the weak infrastructure (despite the trillions of dollars disappearing), sustained high unemployment and a foreign policy that has become a shambles.

You lile that, huh?
 
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