[San Francisco] It's all in the fine print. Yesterday, on both the lunch and dinner menus, it crawled across the very bottom in something close to six point type.
So what is that? Not even The Google can easily explain it in exact terms, but a few news sites and several blogs weighed in about the program that began last year. From Medical News Today...
Some restaurants in San Francisco are adding a surcharge to customers'
bills, increasing food prices or charging a flat fee to help pay the
cost of workers' health insurance under the city's
Healthy San Francisco ordinance, the
Los Angeles Times reports (Lifsher,
Los Angeles Times,
3/17). The program is intended to ensure access to health care services
for San Francisco's 82,000 uninsured residents at local clinics and the
city's public hospital.
Under the program, which was launched
on Jan. 9, private employers with at least 20 workers and
not-for-profit groups with at least 50 workers must provide health care
benefits at a cost that meets minimum spending levels or help cover the
cost of the program. Other funding comes from tax revenue and member
premiums. The
Golden Gate Restaurant Association
has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming that the program
violates a federal law that prohibits state and local governments from
regulating employee benefits (
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 2/22).
So it's not a food tax. Rather, it's a mandated small business employee health care thing. Either a business owner provides health care, as ordained by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, or it gets charged for its employees to participate in the city-run program. I think.
The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog had this take...
Since the beginning of the year, San Francisco businesses have been
required to offer health insurance to employees or pay a fee to the
city to fund health care.
Some restaurants are passing the fee on to consumers in the form of
a health surcharge, which shows up on the bill as a flat fee ($1 per
person, or so) or as a percentage (like sales tax).
Restaurants have been pretty unhappy about the ordinance all along.
The Golden Gate Restaurant Association sued the city, arguing that the
rules about employee benefits can be set only by the feds.
A thing like this can easily morph into a mutated urban legend. I liked this one found on a Yelp topic page...
So, my friends and I were having dinner in the city this past weekend,
when we were hit with the "health tax" on the bill. Hmmm....never heard
of this, so we asked the waiter, who told us the mayor has recently
enforced a health tax of 50 cents on each food item sold throughout
restaurants in the city. The money is pooled and then distributed to
the homeless. They get $500 CASH to better their lives! Is it just me,
or is this a bad idea? I only see homeless people now calling up their
buddies to come on down to SF to cash in monthly! Also, I don't think
that they'll be spending this allowance primarily on food and shelter. [emphasis mine]
Is it wrong of me to assume that this person (a) took the waiter's word for it on this interpretation of the law, (b) invented a few things, and (c) likely voted for John McCain in the last election?
A blog called Yellow Limes seems to be saying this screws consumers and workers...
And now we have this. The San Francisco city council, in all their
infinite wisdom, now mandates that all businesses offer health care to
their employees or pay a fee to the city to fund that care. So, as we
all know, it's the consumer that bites the bullet in the end.
:::
The real question is, when workers get laid off because their employer
can no longer afford to keep them on payroll, who's going to support
them then?
The nutroots of the San Francisco city council
would be wise to make an attempt to understand the law of unintended
consequences.
I still can't figure out what the hell the thing actually is, and am not going to make a huge effort to learn more. But one thing I'm sure of: this is why San Francisco gets tagged with that "Nancy Pelosi and those San Francisco liberals" labels by jackasses like Bill O'Reilly. As if it is a bad thing to try and make some people's lives better. Yeah, it might be a badly flawed attempt. But at least they are trying something. Given the precarious financial situation of the State of California, the city knows it can't count on help from those guys.