Orlando – Florida Restaurant Chain Adds Obamacare Surcharge To Meal Bills

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    Orlando – Diners at a Florida restaurant chain are being asked to pay a health insurance surcharge on their meal tabs to cover the cost for business owners of the Obama administration’s new healthcare program.

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    Customers at eight Gator’s Dockside restaurants dotted around central and north Florida are finding a 1 percent surcharge on their bills listed as “ACA,” the letters standing for the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

    Lengthy signs on the front door and a plastic-coated letter delivered to tables with the menu warn diners of the fee. “The costs associated with ACA compliance could ultimately close our doors,” the letter reads under the company letterhead.

    A $14.56 lunch tab for Asian salad and iced tea ordered by a reporter at a Dockside restaurant in the town of Clermont, a short drive west of Orlando, included a 13-cent ACA surcharge.

    Dockside said it wants to continue to offer full-time employment so its employees don’t have to work multiple jobs to make a living.

    “Therefore, instead of raising prices on our products to generate the additional revenue needed to cover the cost of ACA compliance, Gator’s Dockside has implemented a 1 percent surcharge on all food and beverage purchases only,” the notice adds.

    “People gotta do what they gotta do to obey the law,” said local business owner Sean Gumbert, 40, a lunchtime customer at Gator’s Dockside in Clermont who opposes Obamacare.

    But other diners, including several who didn’t like Obamacare, were less sympathetic to the restaurant’s dilemma, saying insurance was just another cost of doing business, similar to other business taxes, and had no place on a meal tab.

    “It’s a game. If you want to play the game, customers can play the game too. Instead of 20 percent tip, he (the waiter) gets 18 percent,” said Joe Lee, a retired federal worker.

    “We didn’t do this for any, any, any, any, any political reasons,” said a company official who answered the phone at the company’s Orlando headquarters, but asked not to be named.

    “It was done in all the greatest intentions. It was done to give everybody full healthcare without knocking their hours down and not charging ridiculous amounts of money to do it,” he said.

    The Affordable Care Act requires all businesses with more than 50 full-time employees to provide health insurance for their staff, or to make a shared payment on their federal tax return. Originally due to go into effect in January, the requirement has been postponed until the end of the year.

    A dozen other independently owned restaurants in the Gator’s Dockside franchise are not imposing the surcharge.

    “It’s clearly political,” said Hank Fishkind, an Orlando-based economic consultant, noting that the company could have increased its meal prices to cover the extra healthcare cost without advertising it.

    “If they want to display their politics in this way, that’s their right. Some customers, depending on their politics, might like it. Others will not,” he said.

    Fishkind said he was unaware of any other company making a similar move, though some Florida hospitality firms have complained about the requirement under Obamacare to provide health insurance for part-time labor.

    “It is a real issue, particularly in a state like Florida, because we have a concentration of restaurants and lodging companies,” he said.


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    16 Comments
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    hashomer
    hashomer
    10 years ago

    You’d probably get tomain poisoning eating there, so the surcharge may be worth it.

    Reb Yid
    Reb Yid
    10 years ago

    What difference does it make whether they charge 10.10 or 10 dollars plus ten percent?

    BH_Baby
    BH_Baby
    10 years ago

    Must be illegal.

    IF the ACA taxes were in effect yet, then it should be part of the taxable charges on the bill, so then would be defrauding the state.

    But, the ACA taxes are NOT in effect, so,
    the are defrauding the public.

    In any case, it gave the eatery publicity.

    LiberalismIsADisease
    LiberalismIsADisease
    10 years ago

    Good for them! Let them show everyone that the UNaffordable NoCare Act aka ObamaDoesntGiveAhoot is costing everyone money.

    ShalomCon
    ShalomCon
    10 years ago

    One percent is a small price to pay so that all their employees (not just their managers) have healthcare insurance is a very reasonable price to pay. Adding it as a surcharge is a nasty political statement that shows how little they care about the other full time employees… Especially since the employer mandate doesn’t go into effect until 2015.

    They’re trying to sound benevolent by saying that they don’t want to cut hours, but without the ACA mandate, only the handful of managers out of their 70 full time employees would ever receive insurance benefits.

    JackC
    JackC
    10 years ago

    I hope that it works politically the other way. If charging an extra 1% on a restaurant bill, so that the cost on a $ 30 meal is only 30 cents to have everyone insured and to ensure that hospitals get paid and stay in business (LICH), then I would think that I’m getting a bargain and what is all the Red State fuss about.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    10 years ago

    As pointed out above, this is a scam. There is no mandate on this business, yet. There is no tax on this business yet.

    But really, wouldn’t you rather eat in a place where the workers are all healthy and insured? Do you want a waitress who came into work even though she has a little fever?

    Tzi_Bar_David
    Tzi_Bar_David
    10 years ago

    #7 , I am not seeing that…in fact, my CIGNA plan premium went down. If you are seeing increases in others’ medical insurance premiums, it’s because the government no longer permits insurers sell low quality policies with lifetime caps, astronomical deductibles and enough exclusions as to be virtually worthless. That helps all of us…because if someone can’t pay his/her medical bill and goes bankrupt (or just stiffs the hospital), the rest of us have to pay to make up the difference.

    This restaurant is just pulling a political/advertising stunt in the reddest part of a red state.

    10 years ago

    So, instead of raising prices they put a surcharge on. Either way it’s passed onto the customer.

    ShalomCon
    ShalomCon
    10 years ago

    What I said is that 1% is a SMALL price to pay. The thing I find problematic is that they’re adding it as a surcharge on the bill; akin to the fuel surcharge that transportation companies charge. That brings it into the realm of a political statement to me.

    From a public relations standpoint they should’ve positioned the 1% as an overall increase in prices so that ALL of their 70 full time employees will have health insurance; not just the few managers that they currently cover. Most people would applaud that effort.

    The company spokesman said that this “was done to give everybody full healthcare without knocking their hours down and not charging ridiculous amounts of money to do it.” I think that’s a great thing to do. The company could’ve easily added a few part-time workers and cut the most full-timers down to part-time hours thus avoiding the employer mandate altogether. But instead, they’re stepping up and covering their employees well before the mandate goes into effect.

    BTW… What was the excuse for skyrocketing insurance costs before Obamacare? Premiums went from 11% of the average family income in 1999 to 19% in 2010. Both 2013 and 2014 are at 20%.