One Year Later: Starbucks CEO Says Obamacare Brewing Up Trouble
Wanted to alert you to a section of an interview with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz – who, though an original supporter of the health care law, has soured significantly on the measure:
Q: Starbucks was vocal about [wanting] health-care reform. How do you feel about how it worked out?
A: We have been a leader for almost 20 years now in demonstrating our heartfelt commitment to making sure that we provide health coverage for the majority of our people.
That cost last year was $250 million. We have faced double-digit increases for almost five consecutive years with no end in sight.
So, when I was invited to the White House prior to health care being reformed, I was very supportive of the president’s plan, primarily because I felt it was literally a fracturing of humanity for almost 50 million Americans not to have health insurance.
There’s no plan that would be a perfect plan, but the intent of the bill and the heartfelt commitment to insure the uninsured is the right approach. I think as the bill is currently written and if it was going to land in 2014 under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great.
One year later, Starbucks’ CEO recognizes that the health care law hasn’t helped – and in fact has exacerbated – skyrocketing premium increases, and that its mandates will harm small businesses that are the engine of American job growth. The question is, when will Democrats finally accept the damage the legislation will do on the American economy and small businesses in particular?