Posted on 10/07/2014 12:16:13 PM PDT by bestintxas
Next time you eat out at a fancy restaurant, don't be surprised if, at the end of your meal, you spot an unfamiliar item on your tab — a surcharge to pay for Obamacare.
Diners at high-end restaurants such as Melisse, AOC, and a dozen others in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas have noticed a 3 percent surcharge for employee healthcare tacked on to their bills, and the Los Angeles Times reports that some of the customers are none too happy about it. One diner complained in an online blog, "It's basically management saying 'Obamacare made me do it.' If you want to offset costs, try turning up the thermostat. There's your 3%! Now please pay your workers' health insurance and hush."
Better get used to it. "Once it starts you are going to see other segments in the industry, whether coffee shops or ice cream shops, dip their toe in if they see it's manageable and customers do not revolt," Jot Condie of the California Restaurant Association told the Times.
Josh Loeb, co-owner of Milo & Olive and Rustic Canyon, told the Times, "We want our staff to have healthcare. It's not because we support Obama or don't support Obama, or are Democrats or are not Democrats."
Restaurants have considered increasing the price of menu items to pay the cost of providing healthcare, but this would not take into account rent and liability insurance, which would require increasing menu costs by more than 3 percent to make the same amount of money as a simple surcharge
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Dunno.
I’ve notice this at a few restaurants.
What are yuh gonna do?
Fact, as I told one establishment
“That you aren’t professing a position on something that you are charging is complete bull shit.
You charge 3% knowing full well 70% of your employees aren’t going to pay for a bozo program they can’t afford and 3% doesn’t go directly to them to pay for the minimum type of insurance they might get”.
Loved the food and service though..
Stillwater cafe now charging customers a “minimum wage fee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3190173/posts
same premise-same whining leftards saying it’s ‘unfair’ to have transparency in pricing.
The gasoline tax is posted right there on the pump, in the form of a sticker, in a place no one ever pays attention to.
I do eat at the establishments and have ceased doing so as a result.
Many restaurants in LA say they will not follow this custom.
There is a huge thread on it on Chowhound LA. Until I can find it, here is the LA board.
http://chowhound.chow.com/boards/2
And the restaurants in question say to do just that if it offends you. It offends me and I am no longer eating at those restaurants.
Some restaurants in LA are deeply opposed to what they are doing.
I’m voting with my feet. Outta here!
“A surcharge is more honest and up front way to charge a customer. Customers expect the sales tax to be itemized on their bill, why not specific taxes caused by Obamacare?”
No problem there, as long as it is known upfront and not simply tacked onto the bill afterwards and comes as a rude surprise.
I really don’t know many places that tack on charges of normal overhead charges, though, save car rental charges.
Most of the times establishments like hotels do this for WIFI or parking but we all know it is simply an excuse to produce more profit.
Many restaurants here in LA are totally against this and say they will not do the same.
Two very well known female chefs started it ... Unwisely.
This is beyond the comprehension of most everyone in gubmint since most have never even run a lemonade stand.(at least not a profitable one)
I’m in New England.
Wow,being advised to turn UP the thermostat is so 1960.
.
Wrong!!! they want the iphone 6 plus.
True. But when I’ve seen it called out on a bill it’s been listed as “Spanish American War tax”, probably because the law keeps getting reinstated rather than a new identical law written. One way or the other we’re paying a tax for a war that’s been over a long time, and they even tell us that, and nobody cares. Which is why I don’t think these Obamacare surcharges are really going to rile up the masses.
no.
but if they raised the meal prices, you would see that on the menu because the menu has prices for each item right next to it.
so you do know what you’d be paying ahead of time.
I’m just saying they could build all this into their menu prices. Prices for dishes go up each year. Sometimes seasonally.
For the places that add in stuff on the bill, that you are not expecting because they don’t let you know you’re facing a mandatory gratuity of x % or separate surcharges, UNTIL you get the bill, yeah that is underhanded. They need to advertise all this stuff before you order.
“For the places that add in stuff on the bill, that you are not expecting because they don’t let you know you’re facing a mandatory gratuity of x % or separate surcharges, UNTIL you get the bill, yeah that is underhanded. They need to advertise all this stuff before you order.”
I agree totally. Let me know beforehand and I can decide.
I get angry at after-the-fact price gouging.
I live in Houston and I was able to find one restaurant I will never visit. At least they were upfront about it (likely a conservative owner).
“One knows that taxes will be included when one checks into a hotel, at the least the ones I go to.”
I am in a hotel many nights of each week and hotels do not include the taxes in the price they advertise. At booking they quote the complete price for the hotel and the municipal/state taxes.
“One knows that taxes will be included when one checks into a hotel, at the least the ones I go to.”
I understand your analogy. However, the comparison is off. Your suggestion is that the items built into the the actual cost of the room you booked are added at your departure. Perhaps if you viewed the Obamacare add on as part of the taxes the restaurant owner adds just like sales tax.
In fact, what did John Roberts and pips call Obamacare? A penalty or a tax? The fee is a tax therefore the restaurant is showing you where your money is going. Without you thinking their food cost have risen unnecessarily.
I wouldn’t pay it and I’m sure they would have a very difficult time collecting it from their customers. You think the police would arrest you for walking out without paying the surcharge? No legal basis for doing so. Otherwise, any business could add all sorts of surcharges after the fact.
“And I wish taxes weren’t withheld from paychecks”
All those things you’ve mentioned hide the taxes paid, allowing the dumbed down steeple to be clueless about how much they are paying. And they are indeed ignorant!
When I went from 40 hours a week to 25-30 so my son wouldn’t have to go to daycare, I had coworkers ask how I could afford it. When I told them I paid 50% of what I earned in taxes, they wanted to know why ‘I’ was taxed so high, clueless that as second income earners with their husbands making the same as mine, they were taxed in the same bracket I was. Even after showing some the very simple math, they still didn’t get it.
So sad.
You totally miss the point of this article, thread and the
concept of what this business owner was doing. Missed it,
to the point in a way that you would have to be two feet
tall for it to be over your head. The concept was that
simple. The only gripe you could possibly have is that you
weren’t told, before you ordered, about the surcharge.
“Do I after-the-fact slip in charges to a customer to balloon up the price of what I had agreed to charge them?”
Good point, but I don’t think that was the intention here.
May have been a bad idea to sneak it in without advance
notice but I think the intention here was to inform people
of the cost of Obamacare to the business owner, and how
much he has to pass on to the customer. If you focus a
little, I think you could see it too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.