Dunkin’ Brands, which owns Dunkin’ Donuts, is trying to get the White House to change the definition of a full-time worker from 30 hours per week to 40 under ObamaCare.
ObamaCare demands that employers who have 50 or more employees provide health coverage to all full-time workers and their families. If they don’t, they face a penalty of $2,000 per worker. The law also reduced the number of hours worked per week required to qualify as a full-time employee.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, employers paying for health coverage would pay an average of $4,664 for a single worker and $11,429 for a family.
David Dillon, chief executive of the Kroger supermarket chain, said the penalty would be cheaper to pay than the health coverage:
If you look through the economics of the penalty the companies pay versus the cost to provide coverage, the penalty’s too low, or the cost of coverage is too high, or the combination is wrong. If [policy makers] get those things too far out of balance, everybody will have to reconsider their position on that point, including us. But we’re going to wait and see how that all develops.
Many companies in the food service industry have already planned to reduce their number of employees, cut hours for workers, or find a way for the employees to find health insurance themselves, such as Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Denny’s, in response to ObamaCare.