I am in SF this week giving a speech at a convention (hence the photo of the fog rolling in taken from my room).
I noticed an extra fee on my lunch and dinner bills the last couple days and decided to look into it.
Since January, businesses have been required to offer health care to their employees (or pay a fee to the city). Healthy San Francisco requires every business in the city with 20-99 workers to spend $1.17 per employee per hour for health care benefits (over 100 employees must pay more).
Some restaurants are passing the fee on to the customers. Add this new fee to the 8.5% tax and 15%-20% you are already paying and you might want to rethink that second piece of carrot cake for the table (unless you are at Max’s Diner – that would be worth it).
Sure, San Francisco is pretty much putting socialized medicine on the map. Business owners don’t have to pass the cost on to the customers but what did you expect?
By the way, what to SF residents get for our money?
The following services are included with Healthy San Francisco:
- Preventive and Routine Care
- Specialty Care
- Urgent Care
- Emergency Care
- Ambulance Services
- Hospital Care
- Alcohol and Drug Abuse Care
- Services and Tests
- Mental Health Care
- Family Planning
- Durable Medical Equipment
- Prescription Medicine
Fine, I suppose this is where you look for some witty insights to my mind. A "bio" of sorts. Here is the deal... I ride motorcycles, smoke cigars, golf, kayak, fly, race my car through the mountains, write (a lot), and travel extensively. I am almost old enough not to care what other people think about me...almost. ~Godfadr
So the key to operating a business without having to pay the fee is to divide your shop up into several different business entities with less than 20 workers each?
And you’re right, the businesses don’t HAVE to pass on the cost of healthcare to the customer, but in order to maintain their bottom line it is often necessary, especially given that most business tax rates are higher than that of residents, and all the other regulatory fees they incur just for operating.
To answer your question on eating too much equaling free healthcare…just go to the emergency room without identification and tell them you are from Mexico illegally. San Francisco is essentially a sanctuary city, so you’ll be good to go!
California is so unfriendly to business it is a wonder anyone still does business there at all. If I were a major corporation I would move my business out of state. I wonder if those out of work employees would rather have a job or free health care.
Wow, all this time i thought San Fran was located in the US not Canada…..go figure
Oh Canada! I think with the exchange rate the US may have some more money to kick in!