While some restaurant chains, including Papa John’s and Olive Garden, last year sputtered over the requirements of Obamacare, Starbucks’ response is: So?
“Other companies have announced that they won’t provide coverage for spouses; others are lobbying for the cut-off to be at 40 hours. But Starbucks will continue maintaining benefits for partners and won’t use the new law as excuse to cut benefits or lower benefits for its workers,” CEO Howard Schultz told Reuters.
The law requires large companies — meaning those with more than 50 employees — to offer health insurance to employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Businesses that weren’t already doing that have to figure out how to deal with the new expense, and some are choosing to do it by dodging the requirement altogether by shortening workers’ hours.
Meanwhile, UPS recently decided to drop health care coverage for some employee spouses, and blames Obamacare for the move.
That’s all despite the fact that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that health care reform would have a negligible effect on premiums for large employers, Kaiser Health News says.
Starbucks already provides health care to part-timers, and doesn’t plan to change that, Reuters says.
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