The Free-Lunch Debates

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Health-care coverage for 96 $140,000

Current premium for 15 $30,000

New White Dog Cafe out-of-pocket expenses $110,000

Now divide that new expense by her revenues (of which I hope she's very proud): 110,000 3,600,000 = 3.1%

A small 3.1% price increase pays the bill with no help from Uncle Sam! I'm willing to bet that the White Dog Cafe could probably increase the price of its menu items no more than 25¢ to 50¢ each and find enough loose change to pay its new medical-insurance tab. Trust me. If her customers are asking for the likes of Keith, they won't hesitate to pay another 3% or 4% for that great experience the White Dog Cafe's been serving up.

The Clinton plan's a bargain? Not hardly. I don't belong to the National Restaurant Association (NRA). Though I did for years. I let it go when I believed its positions on national issues were too shortsighted and self-serving. The NRA often disregards what I believe to be the best interests of the country. Hey, if we want America to be great, we all must experience some discomfort as we make the sacrifices so desperately needed. The NRA regularly promotes positions that ignore our duty to shoulder the burdens we all face in solving our problems. But in this case even the NRA is right.

["Opponents of the plan call it a new payroll tax; I call it a bargain," said Wicks. She sees the plan leveling the playing field for small businesses, which would get the health-care price breaks available to big companies. She sees the national plan as the only way she can afford full coverage.]

Mandated health care is a bad idea because an employer mandate is simply a hidden tax. Wicks admits as much when she says she can raise her prices to cover the national-health-plan fees. But worse, history has shown that the public sector rarely delivers goods and services as effectively and efficiently as the private sector does. Who's the loser? Low-paid hourly workers. They have little leverage over their wages, while their companies increase prices to cover not only mandated health care but also the government's vigorish.

Mandated health care is a bad idea because our fiscal house isn't in order. If our country can't pay its bills (and it can't with its nearly $1-billion-a-day credit fix), then it should be focusing on solving its current problems before it puts new challenges on its plate. It reflects our immaturity as a country when we encourage our leaders to start new programs that we can't afford when we haven't even begun to pay for our current commitments.

Mandated health care is a bad idea because it limits our freedom. Bureaucrats will make the decisions about what's covered and what's not. They'll determine the quality of our coverage, and hence, the quality of our lives.

If large companies get better insurance prices than small companies do, I have no quarrel with that. Why shouldn't McDonald's get a better price on ground beef than the corner burger stand? That's called volume purchasing. There are plenty of existing alliances for the White Dog Cafe to join. If Wicks can't find one that fits her, perhaps she should help start one.

In any case, the game is changing. What is my restaurant doing to stay ahead of the game? Offering meaningful opportunities. Did I tell you about the M.B.A. one of my employees just earned? We paid for all his tuition and books. Why? It made great business sense. Is he going to be with us forever? No way. He's already interviewing for a position in another field. And that's OK. It's his dream. He started as a mop boy (that's what we called them nine years ago), went off to college, and came back to help us out while he went to graduate school. I want to help my people reach their dreams, even if it means they won't work in my restaurant or even in my industry. I believe it's part of my job as an employer to provide more than a paycheck. I believe it's my responsibility to offer opportunities for growth.

If health-care insurance from employers is mandated, the progressive companies will find other ways to attract the best people. Will Wicks want those mandated, too? Everyone ultimately leaves his or her job, by foot or gurney. That's how life works. But it doesn't have to be because the owners are too tightfisted and too shortsighted to take care of their staff and guests.

Wicks doesn't want a level playing field. She wants to legislate the way we run all our businesses, because she's unwilling to take care of hers. She advocates nationalized health care not as a heartfelt response to the less fortunate but as a strategy to make the White Dog Cafe more competitive. If she can't make her company more competitive without mandated health care, she won't do so with it, either. I believe that the government programs that can make any industry more competitive and healthier are few and far between. Give me the clarity of the marketplace over the goodwill of some power-hungry, insulated bureaucrat any and every day.

I believe that the very least we can do as employers is take care of our employees' basic needs. But I also believe that we're better when left to our own resources than when told what to do by the Rube Goldberg plan, which is being shoved down our throats by Washington. I'm resigned to the fact that some kind of mandate is coming. Given my choice, I'd prefer to see a plan paid with funds out of the common treasury and offered, just like welfare, to those that need it. Then 85% of us Americans wouldn't have our health care mediocratized.

Jeffrey M. Mount

President

Wright's Gourmet House

Tampa

If Judy Wicks's uncovered employees end up getting federally mandated insurance, someone will have to pay for it. If the government takes over the health industry, we'll all pay higher prices and higher taxes, and receive inferior medical services. I would expect a restaurant owner, of all people, to understand that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

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