Job Creation Is Price for New U.S. Health Law

[Conservative]

Job Creation Is Price for New U.S. Health Law: Andrew Puzder - Bloomberg

Our company, CKE Restaurants Inc., employs about 21,000 people (our franchisees employ 49,000 more) in Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants. For months, we have been working with Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, our health-care consultant, to identify Obamacare’s potential financial impact on CKE. Mercer estimated that when the law is fully implemented our health-care costs will increase about $18 million a year. That would put our total health-care costs at $29.8 million, a 150 percent increase from the roughly $12 million we spent last year.

To offset higher health-care expenses, we will have to cut spending on new restaurant construction, one of our largest discretionary spending areas. But building new restaurants is how we create jobs. An $18 million increase in our costs would more than consume the $8.8 million we spent on new restaurant construction last year, leaving nothing for growth. We will also need to reduce our general capital spending, which also creates jobs and allows us to improve our infrastructure and maintain our business. In summary, our ability to create new jobs could vanish.

The complexity of this legislation makes it hard to anticipate costs in the future. Our investments pay off -- when they are successful -- over the long term. Because we don’t know what our health-care expenses will be in two or three years, we are unable to determine with any certainty how much our investments will have to return for us to be profitable. All of that counsels in favor of holding off on new investments and saving our funds. We want to grow. But we are unable to do so knowing that large and undetermined liabilities will absorb funds we otherwise would invest for expansion.

Thank you, President Obama, for fucking up job growth in this country.

 

[MeBelle]

Maybe they can apply for a waiver.

 

[jerryh60]

Yea, get a waiver just like a lot of the Obama big supporters got.

 

[tyler89]

interesting thread.

You of course have to admit that it is a pretty onesided view. Of course a company will always opose something that increases their costs.

But maybe there are quite a few of their employees which now actually have better (or for the first time got) health insurance. That an point to consider.

 

[Katzndogz]

interesting thread.

You of course have to admit that it is a pretty onesided view. Of course a company will always opose something that increases their costs.

But maybe there are quite a few of their employees which now actually have better (or for the first time got) health insurance. That an point to consider.

If the company doesn't like the government looting them to redistribute the company profits they can always do what other companies have done and leave the country. Then no one has a job.

 

[editec]

I'm not a big fan of the fix that Obama came up with.

That said, I was no fan of the system we had, either.

The price of HC is going to rise and blaming that on this POTUS or the next or for that matter any of the previous presidents is nothing but the ignorant blather of partisans.