Dear Papa John: Stick to Pizza

Yesterday, my mother informed me that Papa John came out and said that he was against Obamacare. At first I was in disbelief. Surely my Papa would keep his mouth shut and stay out of politics. I was wrong.

I decided to research what he said. John Schnatter (Papa John) allegedly told shareholders, “We're not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry.” He went on to say, “If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders best interests.” Translation: This is a business, we don’t care about the employees or the consumers, we are only concerned with our profit and I promise that I won’t let a pesky thing like health insurance for our employees hurt our profit, so instead of paying you less in profits, I’m just going to have the customers pay more.

In terms of business, I’m not mad at John. Most businesses follow the same idea of rewarding the shareholders, CEO’s and managers instead of their low level employees (you know the people who are often overworked and underpaid). It’s the way things work: ten employees dig a ditch and the project manager who watched them dig the ditch gets the bonus. No surprise.

Now for the big question: How much more will I have to pay for pizza from Papa John’s? According to John, his “best estimate is that the Obamacare will cost 11 to 14 cents per pizza, or 15 to 20 cents per order from a corporate basis.” If I only have to pay an extra 11 to 14 cents per pizza so that the employees get benefits then I’m okay with that. Hell, I pay an extra 2 dollars just for the convenience of getting pizza delivered sometimes and I’m only about a 5 to 7 minute drive from my local Papa John’s.

I read through a few comments about the Papa John price change. One person said that people were missing the point: most businesses are going to pass the costs off to consumers. To that I say, consumers are nickel and dimed for everything else so why not throw in a few cents for healthcare too? I’m not looking forward to paying more, but I know how to watch my budget and I know how to care about someone other than myself. I don’t go to Starbucks often because I’m not a fan of coffee and even the smell can bother me sometimes, but when I do, I never feel guilty about paying too much for a cup of tea or a hot chocolate because I believe that at least part of that is going towards benefits for the workers.

I know all about the benefits of health insurance. Both of my parents have had cancer. I saw their medical bills and I was very thankful that they had health insurance because there was no way in hell that they could have paid even a fourth of what they owed. The amount that they ended up paying was small in terms of the entire bill, but it was still more than they had and they had to call and make payment arrangements. I cringe to think of the alternative. What if they didn’t have health insurance?

No one who works hard every day should have to live without healthcare. No one should be afraid of going to the hospital because they can’t afford the bill. For some people, it would be cheaper on their families if they died than if they went to the hospital and discovered that they needed prolonged medical attention.

Papa John’s could have simply tacked on the extra charge and no one would have blinked, but now it’s political. I’m not going to stop ordering Papa John’s because John Schnatter and I have a difference of opinion, but while he’s supporting Mitt Romney and downing Obamacare, he needs to focus on making sure that his pizza franchisees live up to his standard of quality and fresh ingredients because I can think of at least two that don’t.