Ever since President Barack Obama was re-elected to a second
term last Tuesday, we have been getting all sorts of reactions from those who
opposed his candidacy. Whether it is the slew of secession petitions that have
flooded official White House websites, or people like Charles Krauthammer and
Rush Limbaugh who seem to think that the Republican Party need only tweak one
or two things to right their ship, you have seen the gamut run from smug
confidence to full blown panic among Obama’s opponents.
More troubling than any of those reactions has been the new
fad that is sweeping several prominent American businesses. Companies have been
announcing layoffs in recent days, and some have made it a point to blame the
President’s administration for the lost jobs. Perhaps no company has gained
notoriety for this tactic than pizza chain Papa John’s has in recent weeks.
Earlier this year, the company announced that they would be
raising the price of pizza in anticipation of the implementation of requires of
the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and more recently following the
election, they also said that they would be laying off workers and cutting
hours in anticipation of the cost involved in providing their employees health
care coverage. These announcements were made to quite a bit of derision in most
circles, but there is at least one group who thinks that the company is right
to be making these types of threats, and is looking to support them.
Rebooting America, an organization that is aimed at
recruiting young conservatives, has come up with an idea similar to one that
supporters of the restaurant chain Chick-Fil-A used earlier this year to
support the company’s opposition to gay marriage. They have decided to hold an
event where people will go to Papa John’s restaurants on Friday in a show of
solidarity with the company’s opposition to Obamacare, and even Republican
celebrities like Christine O’Donnell (who is famous for her failed 2010 Senate
run in which she had to take out an ad declaring emphatically that she was not
a witch) have jumped on board the bandwagon.
Whether this movement picks up any significant traction
remains to be seen (the Facebook group for the organization has 1240 members,
but their story has also been picked up by Fox News’ website), but there is one
thing that simply has to be said: there really is no justification for
glorifying what Papa John’s, Applebee’s, and a slew of other companies are
doing by blaming potential layoffs and hours cuts on Obamacare. In fact, these statements
should be met with contempt, not applause.
Regardless of whether you agreed or not with Chick-Fil-A’s
stance as a company on the issue of gay marriage, the fact of the matter is
that they did have a moral high ground on which to stand. The issue of equal
rights for gays is one that is still being debated bitterly throughout the
country, with most of the opponents of gay marriage and civil unions being
evangelical Christians. Like abortion and many other controversial social
issues, gay marriage is something that goes against the dogma of most adherents
to the faith, and so it isn’t surprising, and frankly shouldn’t be ridiculed as
much as it has been, that people would go up in arms over something so
incendiary.
In the case of Papa John’s, there is no moral superiority
that can be claimed by saying that employees should not be afforded the
opportunity to purchase health care coverage. All of our lives we have been
told that one of the leading causes of the escalation of health care costs has
been the rampant abuse of the nation’s emergency rooms by people with non
life-threatening conditions, and then when they skip on the bill, that cost is
passed onto us.
People like Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney have
ignored that fact of life, and have claimed that emergency rooms are still a
viable option for people without health insurance. To counter this trend and to
get more people covered by insurance in an effort to reduce costs, President
Obama’s bill mandates that any company that employs over 50 workers MUST
provide health care coverage to their employees, and as one of the biggest
pizza chains in the nation (third behind Pizza Hut and Domino’s), and so
obviously Papa John Schnatter’s chain is well above that threshold.
Even after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the
law this summer, there is still plenty of opposition to it, and there are
justifications for that. The “individual mandate” is still the cause of plenty
of consternation, with fines being levied against those who ignore their
opportunity to purchase health insurance proving especially troublesome for
some liberals and a good deal of conservatives. In an age when wages are still
well below their peak levels, it does seem a bit unfair on the surface to be
punishing people for not wanting to expend money, and although a compelling
counterargument of how it’s better than waiting until you get sick and then
going completely broke can be made, it’s still an emotional issue for some
voters, and they have every right to still be opposed to the measure.
Even though the Supreme Court has said that corporations
have the same right to free speech as individual Americans, that still doesn’t
change the fact that what Papa John’s is doing is particularly heinous.
According to Forbes Magazine, the new health care law will cost the company
between $5 and $8 million a year, which could be covered by adding between 3
and 5 CENTS per pizza that the company sells in a given year. When you put that
cost in comparison to the company’s current free pizza giveaway of 2 million
pizzas at the cost of about $24-32 million, there really is no way to sugarcoat
that information.
Papa John’s has in no way endorsed the idea of having a day supporting
their opposition to Obamacare, but they still maintain a certain degree of
accountability here. You have people who are going to the restaurant with the
express purpose of voicing their opposition to the measure, but all they are
actually doing is putting more money into the coffers of a company that is
making it a point to screw over their workers as a way of making a political
statement. Much like all of the companies prior to the election that sent out
emails to their employees telling them that there would be serious consequences
if they voted for President Obama, John Schnatter’s pizza chain is preying upon
fear and political vitriol for their own capitalist gains, and there is nothing
admirable about that.
Citizens would be better served spending their money at
local restaurants and pizza chains on Friday, because it is places like that
who are actually going to help the United States continue to extricate itself
from the hideous recession we have found ourselves in thanks to the idiotic greed of people like John Schnatter. Giving money to a bunch
of selfish jackasses like the crew that runs Papa John’s is doing nothing but
lining their pockets and enabling them to screw over their workforce, and there
frankly isn’t anything less American than giving to the rich and saying to hell
with the poor. You can be opposed to Obamacare all you want, but this is a
really terrible way of expressing that opposition.
There is nothing moral about denying people the right to
health insurance. It is pretty certain that if Jesus Christ was still walking
the Earth, he would be appalled at a business owner cutting employees’ hours so
that they wouldn’t be eligible to enroll in something that could save them from
bankruptcy in the case of a horrendous illness. Papa John doesn’t really care
about any of that religious talk, however. The only thing that speaks to him
and his company is the sound of a cash register ping, and if you go to his
restaurant on Friday with the intention of expressing your opposition to
Obamacare, all you’ll be doing is playing music to his ears and supporting his
exploitation of his workers, and there is nothing ethical about that.
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