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ghurley

(205 posts)
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 09:16 AM Aug 2012

DU... help me respond to a misguided friend...

I've been friends with this guy since we were 14 and couldn't tell the difference between a democrat or a republican. I was raised one way and he another and now we argue about politics all the time. He's actually the only one I will argue with. Anyway... so yesterday I send him the link to Obama's new tax calculator Obama Tax Calculator.

In response, I get an email at 2am that send me to this link:
Will Obamacare Raise the Price of Pizza

He owns a restaurant now and I work in IT, so at 2am I'm sleeping and he's probably had a few after work. I doubt he's actually read the article, but was up in arms at the bar with others because he saw on the Drudge Report that the price of everything was going to go up because of Obamacare.

If you haven't seen the CNN article, it's actually pretty good. This is what I've come up with for a response, and I'd like to see if anyone has ideas on how to make it better.

Hey <name>,

Did you read this article? It was REALLY good.

What I got is that Papa John is a douche bag who doesn't want to have to pay for his employees to have health insurance. Instead, he lets me, and everyone else in America (who may or may not buy his pizza), pay for his employees health care when they show up at the emergency room or when they and their families go on Medicaid.

So now he's required to, by law, stop being a douche bag to his employees. So instead of eating the profits out of his check, or cutting a slice out of his shareholder's returns, he's going to pass the cost onto the people that actually eat his pizza. A $10 pizza now costs $10.10. That extra 10 ¢ means that his employees finally have health care and aren't leaching off the system. It also means that less douchey businesses that want to provide for the welfare of their employees are no longer at competitive disadvantage.

John Schnatter's days of freeloading off the system to make sure his employees are healthy enough to work there are finally coming to an end. How he decides to pay for it out of is $240,000,000 net worth is up to him.

I'm just surprised that you sent THIS article. I was expecting something from Fox News or Breitbart

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JoePhilly

(27,787 posts)
2. The other thing I've heard is that Obamacare will also help smaller Pizza businesses
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 09:21 AM
Aug 2012

be able to give their employees healthcare coverage, and tax breaks for doing so. So the Papa John's CEO is ticked that his competition will be able to provide good benefits to their employees. This levels the playing field.

mercuryblues

(14,532 posts)
3. my bet is
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 09:27 AM
Aug 2012

Schnatter will raise the price of pizza by a dollar and pocket the difference. Many businesses like his, pay their employees so little that they qualify for food stamps and medicaid. I call that double dipping into our tax dollars.

The price of food is going to go up due to the drought. Could john be playing a bait and switch? He has to raise prices because his ingredients cost more, and he gets to blame it on Obama.

uponit7771

(90,347 posts)
4. ***FRAMING*** What has worked almost 90% of the time is framing when talking to conservatives..
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 09:30 AM
Aug 2012

...it 1.) disarms them completely to frame an issue in their memes and 2.) they have a hard to arguing against it.

For instance, "I want everyone paying their fair share and not freeloading"... is great...don't point towards the rich because they've taught subconsciously to worship the rich...point to them later after you've got them to agree to well framed points in their own memes.

They can't disagree with that, most of their framing is in the context of someone wanting something for nothing so they mostly agree...

From there you can a ton of places with Obama care...

 

HopeHoops

(47,675 posts)
6. Pizza prices have been rising steadily all along. Sounds like a bullshit argument.
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 11:57 AM
Aug 2012

The price can fluctuate by two or three dollars week to week and it doesn't matter. When you don't feel like cooking, there's the phone. "That will be about half an hour". The price isn't going to impact sales one way or the other.

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