Tipping your waiter health coverage
Here’s another example of a restaurant passing on the cost of Healthy San Francisco to its patrons. The lady and I had brunch at the Slow Club in the Mission on Saturday and this is our bill. Healthy San Francisco is the program created by Sup. Tom Ammiano to reach the more than 73,000 uninsured San Franciscans with a reasonably inexpensive form of health insurance.
The program is tied up in federal court right now because restaurants have sued arguing that it’s illegal for local governments to require employers to fund health insurance for their employees, which Healthy San Francisco does. About 19,000 San Franciscans had already signed up for the plan by last week and on Wednesday about 13,000 more were added as local businesses met a deadline for registering with the program.
Part of the idea is that without insuring more Americans, you and I pay for it each time someone who lacks coverage ends up making a costly emergency room visit at a public hospital with a preventable disease, illness or injury because they couldn’t access advance treatment, mental health assistance or any other type of care before they reached a tipping point. This program might actually prove that if the government extends coverage to more people who haven't traditionally received it, we may all save money in the end.
For now, you're stuck with the bill while the restaurant industry sues to ignore the true cost of our robust local economy.
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Comments (6)
Yeah -- although I'm all for restaurants protesting whatever they want, this tactic is pretty lame -- and if anything shows certain restaurants' true colors. We got health-taxed at Home in the Castro. I'm sorry, but it you're gonna charge $18 for undercooked gumbo, then you need to go a little more indepth about how your current pricing structure "can't absorb" this ... trust me those sweater queens will pay two more dollars for their fruity cocktails if it means that one hot waiter has tighter, healthier buns. I was there!
Posted by Marke B. | May 5, 2008 04:27 PM
This seems really odd to me..do they really expect their patrons to go "Wow..providing health care to the waiter who just presented me this bill is so expensive..I'd rather eat cheaper and let this schmuck go without health care"?
Posted by Manish | May 5, 2008 08:58 PM
Maybe they'll include a surcharge to cover the paper and ink used to record their political statement too.
The message it sends is already well known by those of us who follow insider baseball, that the GGRA is out of touch with San Franciscans. Through wearing their reactionary politics on their sleeves, the GGRA will now spread the news far and wide, and hopefully this will further diminish their political appeal here.
This is an opportunity that progressives can run with rather than approaching it with our usual brittle air of superiority, as our opponents are actually making our job of trouncing them easier by their greedy short-sightedness.
That said, I'd bet that most San Franciscans would be glad to pay a few bucks on each tab to cover health care, knowing that, with Prop F, odds are that their cook, server or table busser will take time off and see a doctor rather than putting us all at risk by working through an illness.
-marc
Posted by marc | May 6, 2008 08:27 AM
Agreed, Manish. If pitting patrons against the waiters and attempting to exclude the bosses themselves from this debate is the best the restaurants can do, then their cause is in trouble.
Posted by G.W. Schulz | May 6, 2008 01:59 PM
I support restaurants that levy a surcharge. It's time that voters know the costs associated with programs enacted by our elected officials. If you support Healthy San Francisco, you should be happy to pay the costs. If you support Healthy San Francisco but aren't willing to pay the costs, you're a hypocrite. For more, see http://grumpyglutton.com/2008/03/08/michael-and-i-dont-mean-bauer-you-ignorant-slut.aspx.
Posted by Grumpy Glutton | May 6, 2008 02:49 PM
For the record, I most restaurants also employ line cooks, prep cooks, pantry cooks, dishwashers, janitors, bussers, hosts, etc. The healthcare program includes everyone, not just waiters.
Posted by Matt S | May 8, 2008 05:45 PM