Cost Cutting Obamacare Style

From the land of unintended consequences . . .     

Darden Restaurants, which owns the Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Yard House chains has stopped offering full-time schedules to hourly workers, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The company plans to offer a maximum of 28 hours per week per employee.

Newsmax, "Restaurant chain cuts hours to avoid Obamacare costs"

Restaurants typically are not known for paying high wages, so combine low wages with reduced hours and it sounds like Obama won't be able to balance his budget. It also won't do much to help the middle class.

Under a section of President Barack Obama's Affordable Healthcare Act due to go into effect in 2014, large employers face fines of up to $3,000 per employee if they fail to provide insurance for employees who work an average of 30 or more hours per week.

Sounds like a "loophole" to me.

But then, Congress never considers human behavior when they write these laws. Of course in this case, they also failed to read it before passing it.

Darden said it offers health insurance to its 185,000 employees nationwide but many are on a limited-benefit plan which will be phased out under Obamacare.

Limited benefit plans, unless granted a waiver, are considered illegal under Obamacare rules. Bazinga!

The Orlando Business Journal reported that Darden plans to open 500 new restaurants in the next five years, adding an estimated 50,000 new jobs.

50,000 newly employed taxpayers who will not have employer provided health insurance.