Friday, August 10, 2012

Boston Globe piles on Papa John's, makes stuff up

The hits keep coming against Papa John's Pizza founder John Schnatter for answering a question recently about the impact of ObamaCare on his corporation's stock price.

What the pizza mogul's attackers fail to realize is the largest negative impact will not be felt by Papa John's International Inc., but by thousands of small business owner franchisees, their employees and the people who won't be able to work for them because of the law's disincentives for hiring or keeping employees.

The Louisville Courier Journal editorial page today thinks it's all a big joke over twenty cents:

"In our book, that's a bargain if it means thousands of Papa John's employees in all 50 states are going to get health coverage and we're not going to have to foot the bill when hardworking but uninsured pizza chefs get ill and end up in the hospital.
Imagine that. Health care for thousands of workers and all you have to do is look for two dimes under your car seat. That's change we can believe in!"

This is a blatant misrepresentation of the impact of ObamaCare on Americans and our health care system. ObamaCare doesn't fix the problem of uncompensated care and it won't provide coverage for a lot of Papa John's employees.

The Boston Globe, though, takes the silliness to an even higher level:
The guessing here is it won't be that tough for Papa John's to survive the 11- to 14-cent-per-pizza increase. Its biggest competitors, like Domino's, will also have to contend with potential health care increases.
Schnatter's concern is that the corner pizza shop will be exempted because it has fewer than 50 employees.
What the Globe ignores is that franchisees and employees will bear the brunt of ObamaCare. And many of those small businesses have fewer than 50 employees, qualifying them for the dubious  "exemption." On top of that, writers at the Globe should have to divulge their source for the assertion about Schnatter and the "corner pizza shop." It's not something he has said or written. In fact, it appears they got that one from a liberal blog.