医疗改革中企业的最低底线

 　　GWEN IFILL: Next, we return to the impact of the new health care reform law -- tonight, how employersare preparing to comply with new rules that require them to insure their employees. Even though some portions of the mandate¹ have been delayed, many employers remain frustrated².NewsHour's economics correspondent, Paul Solman, looks at the bottom line for different business owners, part of his Making Senseof financial news.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: At Rock Bottom Brewery³ in Omaha, Neb., restaurant owner Greg Cutchall didn't mince⁴ wordswhen it came to the Affordable⁵ Care Act.

　　GREG CUTCHALL, Rock Bottom Brewery: The law, the way it's written today, I think should be scrapped⁶.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Cutchall's main gripe is with the so-called employer mandate, which obliges firms with 50 or more full-time⁷ workers to offer affordable health insurance or pay a penalty of up to $2,000 per full-time employee.

　　GREG CUTCHALL: I cannot think of any other burden that's been placed on the restaurant industry in the last 20 years that could have the impact that this one does.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: The employer mandate, a burden to some, to others, no big deal.

　　NEERA TANDEN, Center for American Progress: Most employers think it's a responsibility of being agood employer to offer health insurance.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Neera Tanden, a former health reform adviser⁸ to President Obama, points out that the vast majority of large firms already provide benefits to their workers.

　　NEERA TANDEN: Ninety-five percent of companies that have 50 or more employees offer health insurance today, and so we're really talking about an order of 10,000 firms in the whole country that are going to face this.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: So where are the complaints coming from? Businesses with high turnover⁹, like restaurants, which don't offer insurance to all their workers, and thus consider the act a very big deal. Benefits lawyer Juliana Reno has been advising firms on the law.

　　JULIANA RENO, benefits attorney: It's different than, say, a law firm, which traditionally has offered coverage¹⁰ for its employees, but it doesn't have to suddenly cover or pay the penalty for a whole group of employees that it had not previously¹¹ helped.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Omaha's Cutchall employs 1,400 people at his 50 restaurants, mostly franchises¹² like Sonic drive-ins, Domino's, Famous Dave's, and Twin Peaks.

　　GREG CUTCHALL: We have employees that work 40 hours one week and 10 hours the next week, and then go away for two weeks. And executing it and monitoring it is going to be a nightmare.

　　MAN: OK. Fish tacos?

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Right now, Cutchall only offers health insurance only to those who have been at the company at least a year and work more than 32 hours a week. Under Obamacare, he will have to offer benefits to anyone working more than 30 hours a week.

　　GREG CUTCHALL: If all of those people wanted insurance, yes, it would be a major financial burden on our company , even if they paid half.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: An unbearable¹³ burden, argued Jamie Richardson of burger chain White Castle at a congressional hearing. Insuring all staffers that work 30 plus hours would make the Affordable Care Act unaffordable.

　　JAMIE RICHARDSON, White Castle System, Inc.: We can't foresee a future where we're able to hire new hires as full-time employees. We're going to be scheduling part-time at 25 hours a week or less. That's not what we would do under normal circumstances.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: It's something that companies across the country are now weighing, keep employees below 30 hours a week and thus avoid paying for their health insurance entirely¹⁴. It's part of Cutchall's plan.

　　GREG CUTCHALL: Until we understand the law better, going forward, unless we absolutely have to for staffing needs, we will -- we -- our plan is not to make any new hires for people that would work over 28 hours a week.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: More than half of restaurant jobs are part-time already. If hours are reduced even more,won't Obamacare wind up backfiring?

　　NEERA TANDEN: You know, what I would actually hope is that most of these companies would try to figure out a way to work with the law. And the idea that people would really try to push workers to part-time work is part and parcel of a way of thinking in which employees are just costs that you're trying to minimize.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Moreover, said attorney Reno at a recent Obamacare Q&A at her synagogue:

　　JULIANA RENO: It is hard to manage your work force as well as you think you can.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Even if it's company policy to work less than 30 hours a week, says Reno, Reno, it may be tough to manage in practice.

　　JULIANA RENO: I do have a couple of fast food restaurant clients, and they are having a very difficult time managing that.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: So the plan to cut hours may not end up saving employers that much money, especially when you reckon the other costs.

　　JULIANA RENO: If you, as an employer, try to crunch¹⁵ down hours below 30, you are going to lose some employees. The second problem is, it's not going to cost you in terms of penalties, but it's going to cost you a lot more in terms of recruiting and training and administrative¹⁶ stuff, because now you have to hire more employees to have the same amount of man hours worked.

　　JODY MANOR¹⁷, Bittersweet Catering¹⁸ Cafe & Bakery: So this is our expansion project.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Jody Manor agrees that there are not-so-hidden costs to treating employees as interchangeable parts. He owns Bittersweet Cafe and catering in Alexandria, Va., and is opening a second location in October.

　　JODY MANOR: We're going to do a bar and restaurant out on the waterfront.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Manor already offers health insurance to all his 45 employees, but he doesn't have to. He soon will, however, as the new restaurant vaults²⁰ him over the 50-full-time-employee threshold. That is an economic concern, he says.

　　JODY MANOR: The biggest problem, from my perspective right now, is that nobody really knows what it'sgoing to cost.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: So what are you going to do with your employees in the new place you're opening?

　　JODY MANOR: Full speed ahead, man. You know, life is full of uncertainties²¹, and business has got evenmore. Yes, it's going to cost more money, but you have just got to build that into your model. And, tome, health care is a basic human right, and if we're going -- at this juncture²², if it's up to businessto provide the benefit, then that's what we have got to do.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: You're not going to put people on part-time in order to avoid going over the 50-employeethreshold?

　　JODY MANOR: I don't think so. Once we have a little bit better idea about what the costs involved are, maybe I will change my mind about that. But, by and large, we prefer to have a full-time crew. And, you know, that helps build our family. I always say, like, this is like my big Latin family here.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Manor's mom, Alice, helps out at the cafe.So what's he like to work with or work for?

　　WOMAN: It's an indentured²³ servitude program for mothers.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: No benefits at Bittersweet for Manor's mom, who doesn't need them. But the baker¹⁹ here, Angel Brizuela, has been with Manor for 26 years, in part to get health insurance for himself and his family.

　　MAN: Health insurance is really, really important for the family.

　　JODY MANOR: It's important to provide benefits if you're going to get people to stick with you. My baker has been here 26 years. And he came to the back door as the skinny, little, shivering kid one day.And I think it's a great story about our business. I feel incredibly proud of that every day when I show up and see that.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: You're tearing up now.

　　JODY MANOR: Yes, it makes me weepy.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Clifton Stevens had recently been hired as a kitchen manager after years in the commissary at Georgetown University.So was health insurance a major factor in taking this job?

　　CLIFTON STEVENS, Bittersweet Catering Cafe & Bakery: It was a major part, because in society today in my field, it's not offered a lot, you know, to where I can be covered, as well as my family.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: But health insurance for more people costs more money, and Manor admits he has greater flexibility²⁴ to raise prices than the fast food joints²⁵ that are cutting worker hours.

　　JODY MANOR: I'm not selling the cheapest thing here. You know, I'm not competing with McDonald's.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: But Cutchall operates restaurants that do.

　　GREG CUTCHALL: The last thing we ever want to do is raise prices, because we know it can affect business, but, at the end of the day, we have to maintain profitability, and if our expenses increase, as in any business, we have to raise prices.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: In July, the Obama administration delayed the implementation²⁶ of the employer mandate, after companies complained the provision was crushing them. Now folks have another year to comply, another year to try to change the law itself.

　　JAMIE RICHARDSON: Maybe now it's time to take a sad song and make it better, because we think this time is giving us a chance to fix the parts of the law that really are unworkable and are really going to make it difficult for us to continue to employ people and create jobs.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Whether businesses get a little help from their friends in government or just have to let it be, well, for now, time is on their side.

1 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

2 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 brewery   

n.啤酒厂

参考例句：

• The brewery had 25 heavy horses delivering beer in London.啤酒厂有25匹高头大马在伦敦城中运送啤酒。
• When business was good,the brewery employed 20 people.在生意好的时候，这家酿造厂曾经雇佣过20人。

4 mince   

n.切碎物；v.切碎，矫揉做作地说

参考例句：

• Would you like me to mince the meat for you?你要我替你把肉切碎吗？
• Don't mince matters,but speak plainly.不要含糊其词，有话就直说吧。

5 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

6 scrapped   

废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架

参考例句：

• This machine is so old that it will soon have to be scrapped. 这架机器太旧，快报废了。
• It had been thought that passport controls would be scrapped. 人们曾认为会放开护照管制。

7 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

8 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

9 turnover   

n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量

参考例句：

• The store greatly reduced the prices to make a quick turnover.这家商店实行大减价以迅速周转资金。
• Our turnover actually increased last year.去年我们的营业额竟然增加了。

10 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

11 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

12 franchises   

n.（尤指选举议员的）选举权( franchise的名词复数 )；参政权；获特许权的商业机构（或服务）；（公司授予的）特许经销权v.给…以特许权，出售特许权( franchise的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder. 电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ford dealerships operated as independent franchises. 福特汽车公司的代销商都是独立的联营商。 来自辞典例句

13 unbearable   

adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的

参考例句：

• It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
• The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。

14 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

15 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

16 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

17 manor   

n.庄园，领地

参考例句：

• The builder of the manor house is a direct ancestor of the present owner.建造这幢庄园的人就是它现在主人的一个直系祖先。
• I am not lord of the manor,but its lady.我并非此地的领主，而是这儿的女主人。

18 catering   

n. 给养

参考例句：

• Most of our work now involves catering for weddings. 我们现在的工作多半是承办婚宴。
• Who did the catering for your son's wedding? 你儿子的婚宴是由谁承办的？

19 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

20 vaults   

n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴

参考例句：

• It was deposited in the vaults of a bank. 它存在一家银行的保险库里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 uncertainties   

无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物

参考例句：

• One of the uncertainties of military duty is that you never know when you might suddenly get posted away. 任军职不稳定的因素之一是你永远不知道什么时候会突然被派往它处。
• Uncertainties affecting peace and development are on the rise. 影响和平与发展的不确定因素在增加。 来自汉英非文学 - 十六大报告

22 juncture   

n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头

参考例句：

• The project is situated at the juncture of the new and old urban districts.该项目位于新老城区交界处。
• It is very difficult at this juncture to predict the company's future.此时很难预料公司的前景。

23 indentured   

v.以契约束缚（学徒）( indenture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The Africans became indentured servants, trading labor for shelter and eventual freedom. 非洲人成为契约上的仆人，以劳力交换庇护及最终的自由。 来自互联网
• They are descendants of indentured importees. 他们是契约外来工的后代。 来自互联网

24 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

25 joints   

接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。

26 implementation   

n.实施，贯彻

参考例句：

• Implementation of the program is now well underway.这一项目的实施现在行情看好。