Megalextoria

That the bulk of Americans (especially those 4+ million whose insurance policies have recently been cancelled as a result of the ACA) have to pay more for healthcare as a result of Obamacare, is now largely accepted and well-known. But did you know that the cost of Obamacare is slowly metastasizing to other places? Such as your restaurant bill.

Several restaurants in a Florida chain are asking customers to help foot the bill for Obamacare. Diners at eight Gator’s Dockside casual eateries are finding a 1% Affordable Care Act surcharge on their tabs, which comes to 15 cents on a typical $15 lunch tab. Signs on the door and at tables alert diners to the fee, which is also listed separately on the bill.

The Gator Group’s full-time hourly employees won’t actually receive health insurance until December. But the company said it implemented the surcharge now because of the compliance costs it’s facing ahead of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate kicking in in 2015.

“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.”

The company employs a total of 500 people, with about half working full-time. Currently only management receives health benefits, but the restaurant will have to offer coverage to all full-timers once the mandate takes effect. The fee will allow the company to continue offering full-time hours to many workers, according to Sandra Clark, the group’s director of operations.

“I’m just trying to keep the employees I have that I’ve worked hard to train,” Clark said.

In addition to the costs of providing health care, the company hired one additional staffer and a consulting firm to make sure it is complying with the law and to assist in the additional tracking of workers’ hours and wages required by Obamacare, said Clark.

Clark is not sure how much the company is spending on compliance, but estimates that it will cost $500,000 a year to extend insurance to its full-time hourly restaurant workers. The surcharge may bring in about $160,000 a year, she hopes.

Full article: http://www.zerohedge … your-restaurant-bill

More than 2 million Americans who would otherwise rely on a job for health insurance will quit working, reduce their hours or stop looking for employment because of new health benefits available under the Affordable Care Act, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.

The findings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office revived a fierce debate about the impact President Obama’s signature health-care program will have on the U.S. economy.

via Health-care law will prompt over 2 million to quit jobs or cut hours, a CBO report says

When the Framers were putting together the Constitution in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they knew the states would not adopt it without written guarantees that the new central government would respect natural rights.

The supporters of the Constitution promised political leaders in the states that the written guarantees would soon be added as amendments, and they were. By late 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified and added to the new Constitution.

The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to assure all in America that their natural rights — areas of human choices for which a permission slip from the government cannot be required and in which the government cannot coerce compliance with its wishes — would not be impaired by the federal government.

Since the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the natural rights protected in the Bill of Rights generally have been insulated from interference by the states, as well.

All natural rights are of paramount importance to all persons. They are individualized personal gifts from the Creator and have been recognized as such in American law since Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed with them by Him.
One of those rights guarantees the free exercise of religion.

Indeed, the Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment was written to ensure that the new government could not coerce persons to behave differently than their religious views informed their consciences, or to punish them for not conforming to a government-mandated religious orthodoxy.

Generally, for almost 230 years, the federal government left us alone to choose freely our religious practices and to worship as we believe. Until now.

Today, the free exercise of religion is under attack by the government. When Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act — I prefer to call it Obamacare, because it is President Obama’s brainchild, his signature legislation and because there is nothing affordable about it — members of Congress must have known that the law would impose obligations upon persons that would force them to engage in behavior in violation of their religious beliefs.

Obamacare, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court under a superficial and novel theory that permits the feds to regulate natural rights by taxing us when we do not do as they have commanded, requires all employers of 50 or more full-time workers to obtain for them health insurance that pays for birth control via contraception, sterilization and abortion.

The Little Sisters of the Poor is an order of Roman Catholic nuns who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They operate nursing homes for those who cannot afford them and employ more than 50 people.

The sisters have objected to the requirement that they must pay for health insurance coverage that provides for birth control, as those payments directly violate Catholic teachings and beliefs.

In a pluralistic society, one would expect that the government would accommodate the sisters. In a free society in which everyone who works for the government takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, the feds have a legal obligation to accommodate them.

In a political society in which many Catholics are Democrats who elected the Congress that gave us Obamacare, one would expect an accommodation. We expect in vain, though, as the federal government has resisted the sisters mightily and asked the courts to turn down their pleas.

Full article: http://www.washingto … d-mock-the-faith-of/