Lanhee J Chen, Columnist

Order the Oysters, Pay for Waiter's Health Care

Why should liberals mind if upscale Los Angeles restaurants make customers pay for employees' health care?

October 8, 2014 at 8:04 PM UTC

Lanhee Chen is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who also teaches public policy at Stanford University. He was the policy director of Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. Chen was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration. He practiced business litigation with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and served as the Winnie Neubauer visiting fellow in health policy studies at the Heritage Foundation. Chen earned his doctorate and master's degree in political science from Harvard University, his law degree from Harvard Law School and his bachelor's degree in government from Harvard College.

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An article in the Los Angeles Times this week described how some of the city's top foodie destinations are beginning to impose a surcharge on patron checks to help cover the cost of providing health insurance to their employees:

It shouldn't be surprising that restaurant owners (or any business owners) would try to offset the cost of furnishing health coverage to their employees. Of course, the restaurant could simply price the items on its menu higher to account for health-care costs, but doing so risks the misimpression that it is simply trying to drive its margins higher. Assessing a fee or surcharge to help offset the cost of health insurance is the most transparent way for a business to inform consumers both that it is furnishing the coverage and what the cost of that coverage is.