The Affordable Care Act has a lot of people talking as some love it while others feel it is nothing but a big problem. Well, with premium increases for both employers and employees, some are trying to figure out how to make up the difference. According to the Inquisitr on March 2, 2014, a Florida restaurant is making up for it by adding an Obamacare surcharge to the receipts of customers.
Eight of Gator's Dockside restaurants in Florida have officially put an Obamacare surcharge onto the receipts of customers. It reads as "ACA Surcharge" and can amount to 15 cents on a typical $15 lunch tab. It essentially turns out to a one percent charge.
The restaurants do have signs on the door and at tables to alert diners to the fee.
"The costs associated with ACA compliance could ultimately close our doors," the sign reads. "Instead of raising prices on our products to generate the additional revenue needed to cover the costs of ACA compliance, certain Gator's Dockside locations have implemented a 1% surcharge on all food and beverage purchases only."
Full-time hourly employees of Gator's aren't set to receive health insurance until December of 2014, but the Obamacare surcharge is in place now due to the impending employer costs coming in 2015.
Sandra Clark, the director of operations for Gator's, states she is "just trying to keep the employees I have that I've worked hard to train." The company employs a full 500 people without about half of them working full-time.
Providing healthcare will bring extra costs to the company, but they also had to hire on an additional employee and a consulting firm to properly comply with the law and assist in the extra tracking of employees' hours and wages required by Obamacare. That adds even more to their costs.
13 other Gator's Dockside restaurants are run by a different firm and they are not putting in the Obamacare surcharge.
