Health Insurance Costs Will Break Small Businesses
Posted by Chris Martin at 3/23/2009 8:44 AM 
Categories: Health policy, Health Insurance
Tags: Wah! Wah! Wah!
Categories: Health policy, Health Insurance
Tags: Wah! Wah! Wah!
Sometime last year San Francisco passed a program mandating employer provided health insurance. It met with the usual chorus of noisy self pity from our local John Galts whose operating margins appear to be razor thin and whose products seem to be so indistinguishable from their competitors that they cannot dare to raise prices.
In fact the Golden Gate Restaurant Association is suing now to get an emergency injunction against the law.
Except for some restaurant owners who seem to have better thing to do with their lives than sit on the pity pot.
In fact the Golden Gate Restaurant Association is suing now to get an emergency injunction against the law.
Except for some restaurant owners who seem to have better thing to do with their lives than sit on the pity pot.
At the bustling French bistro Zazie in San Francisco's Cole Valley, one dollar goes a long way. That's how much owner Jennifer Piallat charges each customer to pay for health care for her 32 employees.The dollars add up to about $11,000 a month - enough to provide Kaiser Permanente medical insurance, dental insurance and a 4 percent employer match on 401(k) retirement accounts.
She said only 1 percent of her customers have complained about the surcharge. "And they were the 1 percent we didn't want to come back anyway," she said.
The Zazie experience is playing out at restaurants around the city, as most owners pass along the costs of city-mandated health care coverage to their customers - and say they're delighted to finally be able to afford it. Most customers say they're OK with paying extra.
From the SF Comical.
Maybe the bankers could learn a thing or two here?
First, it is wrong for any government to mandate health insurance as a requirement of employment. Period. It is wrong. Th employment marketplace is sophisticated enough to handle details like that.
Second, with that said, are you praising the Zazie Bistro for doing the right thing? Or for complying with a requirement?
If this is such a good idea, why weren't they doing this long before?
Or was Zazie simply providing what most employees are seeking: A job with enough hours and respectable pay?
Hey, here's a novel idea: pay people enough to be able to afford their own privately paid health insurance, give them a real tax break for the cost of coverage, require insurance companies to offer a wide variety of coverages in order to do business within a state, and then see how people choose.
I guarantee there are those (and more than just a few) who will not spend the extra money on insurance, expecting you and me to cover for them. They'll pizz it away, buy big screen TVs, booze, broads, drugs, but no insurance.
Praise was intended for finding a way to provide health insurance and thereby raise the general cultural level of this benighted nation.
Meanwhile please check your logic. The statement: If A were such a good idea why weren't people doing it already is flawed. It assumes that, as a group we have access to all possible new ideas and the means to implement them right now. Material and moral progress even innovation and variation have no place and we are, right now, living in the best of all possible worlds.
We are not gods nor were our parents. new ideas come along all of the time. We test them and, hopefully, improve.
WA
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No praise should be granted for taking actions required by law, novel or not. None!
Nothing wrong with MY logic...maybe your take on it. My view was that if this establishment was so pure, they would have found a way, some way to afford this insurance long before the requirement.
Holy crap!...11,000 or so, transactions a month. I'm thinking gross revenues of a quarter to a half a million a month...and they can't squeeze out health insurance premiums without hitting-up the customers for a buck-a-sale premiun.
If I were a customer, and it is doubtful I would be because I am a cheap bastard, the buck would come off the precisely calculated 15% tip, without complaint.
On the contrary, praise should always be granted to people who do the right thing and make the lives of their fellows easier. Laws are weak and imprecise.
WA
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