Papa John's pizza customers better expect a price increase, and the reason for it is "Obamacare."
Papa John's founder and CEO John Schnatter, during a conference call, said the pizza chain will experience the increase in order to offset the costs to implement the Affordable Care Act, also coined as Obamacare.
Papa John's will need the additional money to cover the health benefits of its 165,000 employees. The other option for Schnatter's company is pay a $2,000 fine if the employees are not given the health benefits.
"I have two options, I can stop offering coverage and pay the $2,000 fine, or I could keep my number of staff under 50 so the mandate doesn't apply. Obamacare is making me think about cutting jobs instead," said Schnatter.
The increases include a possible 11 to 14 cents per pizza or 15 to 20 cents per order, according to Pizza Marketplace's Alicia Kelso.
Schnatter's use of the term "Obamacare" is normally said by opponents of the legislation.
According to Politico, Schnatter said, "We're not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare."
The pizza chain's CEO added that if Obamacare is not repealed, he'll find "tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders best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."
McDonald's also announced that Obamacare could cost stores $10,000 to $30,000, however, they stated they are not worried about it.
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