I feel bad for poor Dunkin' Donuts, this Obamacare thing is really going to break their bank. They only make tens of billions per year at their 10,000 stores in 32 countries, how can they afford health care? My heart bleeds for them and all you right wing fanatics that believe this sort of propaganda. What would Honey Dew?

Millions of Americans will lose their health insurance under this plan. Premiums under this plan will be unaffordable ad it will be cheaper to pay the fine, or what Chief justice John Roberts called a "tax". The plan is designed to destroy private, employer-paid, health insurance and replace it with a government-run, Soviet-style single payer system.

Dunkin' Donuts is wasting its time. Remember, most Dunkin Donuts locations are small business franchises, and their business model should not be dictated by the federal government. This is only the beginning of a unmitigated disaster.

I knew it wouldn't take long for the conspiracy believers to come out. Dunkin' Donuts would do anything for free advertising, this is nothing but a publicity stunt.

Conspiracy believer? Have you read any of the law? It's riddled with taxes, rules, mandates, and radical changes to our health insurance and health delivery system. I could care if we are writing about Dunkin Donuts or Dave and Busters. The fact is all businesses are going to suffer, health care costs will skyrocket, and prices for goods and services will rise. In addition, lines will get longer and care will be rationed. In fact it is already happening.

Socialism new has and never will work. That is exactly what Obamacare is, and socialism kills the free enterprise system.

Get some facts before you demagogue job creators. I'll be glad to go toe to toe and compare nores once you cite something useful and truthful to debate in this forum. .

I hate autocorrect... Just sayin...socialism NEVER has and never will work......I'll be glad to go toe to toe and compare NOTES. .. Sorry.

Peter: The reason why we are heading towards a single payer, government run system is because the "old" system was a hybrid. Group health insurance is not a free market. It is based on socialism. Yet it shuts people out. It puts a worker in bondage. A family of 16 pays the same as a family of three. IMHO, this is not a free market.
A free market would have individuals competing in the market place for the product. Insurance companies could only charge what the market could bear. At least this is my understanding of the free market.
The system was broken. I am not happy with the direction the country chose to go. But I will take a government run system over the "hybrid". I know too many people who have needlessly suffered under our pre-Obamacare health system.

Deb: I absolutely agree with your assessment. You may not agree, but I believe free market can fix our health insurance system. People need an incentive to save money and that will bring costs down in a true free market. What a mess we have!

DD sounds just like another sleazy retailer that doesn't want to accept any responsibility for its employees beyond paying them minimum wage. I spoke with an employee this morning who tells me that no part-timers have company provided health insurance and that the full-timers (the Manager) pay a large percentage of their health care premium. By the way, none of this is socialism or capitalism, it is the country grappling with a way to provide health care to ALL of its people, the same issue we addressed with older people in the 50's and 60's going broke because they got sick and had no health insurance because they already had retired. I won't be visiting a DD anytime soon, that's for sure.

Eventually, you will have a list of retailers to avoid: Honey Dew, Walmart, Stop and Shop, etc. Companies exist to make a profit... they will pass on their expenses to consumers.

I wonder how much DD pays in taxes to the State of Massachusetts, or to the the Federal Government. Our economic system depends on these taxes. And yes, even taxes are passed on to we, the consumer. Still and yet, I prefer capitalism with all its warts to socialism with all its so-called equality.

We can reduce the cost of health care in this country, however it is covered, if we stop eating donuts. And it's cheaper to make a good cup of coffee at home. Buy a thermos bottle for coffee to last the day.

The future of health care costs in this country is on our plates. We can debate from now until Doomsday about how to provide health care insurance, or we can take action individually and collectively, no matter our politics, to dramatically improve our health, cut health care costs, and mitigate climate change. When it's snowing outside and your shovel is waiting for action, brew yourself a cup of coffee and watch Forks Over Knives: http://www.hulu.com/watch/279734?src=sem-plus-google&cmp=507&gclid=CPq7wJ230rQCFYqZ4Aod-RsALw I know a number of people who, for health reasons, have shifted to a plant-based diet and they feel great. One is a tree-surgeon: it's a myth that we need meat and dairy to be strong and healthy. This movie shows a whole fire department that shifted to a plant-based diet to improve their health.

Yes Dunkin Donuts has 10,000 stores, of which the vast majority are owned by individual franchisees. The franchise owners currently average about 50,000 dollars per year in gross profit per store. Which why most them own on average between 5 and 10 stores.

How many employees does it take to operate a single store? 4 employees per shift x 3 shifts per day...so on the low end 12 employees. The average health care plan will cost about $8000.00 So that will cost the franchise owner about 100 thousand dollars per store. Please tell me where that money comes from?

well guess my Dunkin fix will have to end. I will not support a company that doesn't want to support it's workers. BYE DUNK!

I hope those who oppose having a mandate that employers provide health insurance for their workers refuse to accept health insurance benefits for their own jobs or resign from their jobs and find new employment without health insurance coverage. The latter would be one way of opening up jobs with health benefits to those who don't currently have them. It would also make the arguments against a mandate more credible.

BTW, we lose jobs when we provide health benefits to public service employees. If we were to cut health insurance as a payroll expense, we could hire more employees. Or, we could reduce property and income taxes. I don't advocate this because I believe everyone should have affordable health insurance and employer packages tend to be cheaper than what one can purchase as an individual.

I have never had a full time job that did not offer health insurance...ever. The only jobs I have ever held that did not offer medical insurance were part-time jobs, something I have not had since high-school, and I have no college education. Two things should be pointed out here.

First I did not enroll in an employee sponsored health care program until I was married and had children. Why? Because it was cheaper for me to pay out of pocket for a visit to the doctor on the rare occasion I became sick than it was for me to contribute 30 to 60 dollars a week out of my pay check.

Secondly, who says that a part-time employee is even looking for health insurance? Go into a Dunkin after 3:00 pm any day of the week and on weekends and tell me 95% of the employees in there are not on their parents insurance. Go into one before 3 pm during the week and tell me at least half aren't already collecting medicare. Throw in the stay at home mom and working mother's hours and on her husbands plan, or the single mother working part-time collecting state benefits...who are we left with?

So why should the government lower the hrs required to be considered full/part-time and force business owners to offer insurance to employees that they can't afford? If you want a job that offers medical insurance as a benefit go work for a company that offers it.

American employment will looko very different in the very near future. Many large companies will keep only key senior managers on their Full time payroll and contracted contingcey workers to execute the menial and administrative tasks. That means 95% of Americans that want to work full time will need to sell their services to the highest bidder and recieve only cash compensation and no benefits. Companies will work hard to keep their permanent workforce under 50 employees to avoid the penealties or pay the mear $2000 fine rather than $10,000 health care premium.
If you think your health care is expensive now, wait until you need to pay for the whole nut!

Obama also wants to raise the Federal minimum wage to 9 dollars an hour onforcing fast food chains to give their employees a 24% pay increase on top of medical insurance.

Part of the reason the economy is falling apart is that there's a widening gap between rich and poor. We all have an equal number of hours in the day. A person who earns $8 an hour (Mass minimum wage) has to work 5 hours to pay a contractor $40 an hour. At least under the old math that I learned, it doesn't work for long to have to work 5 hours to pay some else for 1 hour of work. There are not enough hours in the day or week. Those earning minimum wage can't afford to purchase the services of those in the middle class. The middle class leaks jobs as a result. It doesn't benefit anyone -- lower class or middle class -- to have large numbers of working poor with ill health. We will not have a healthy economy without a healthy workforce. We need to look at more than dollars. How can anyone take pride in their work if they don't receive a fair wage? What does it mean if we don't think government should give handouts to the poor but we also don't think employers should pay a fair wage? These are human beings, not objects to be manipulated or exploited. There are no pure communist or socialist societies any longer, and there are no pure capitalist societies, to my knowledge. Every society has moved to a mixed economy. There apparently is some wisdom in being centrist rather than extreme in either direction.

If I own a convenience store with 10 employees all making $7.25 an hour, and am forced by the government to increase my annual payroll by $27,000.00 I am going to shrink my workforce. Especially in an economy where impulse spending is plummeting. I spend all day in convenience stores. You would not believe how much there business has slowed down in the first month of 2013 alone since the payroll tax increase took place. I talk to store owners who have been in the business for 30 plus years that will tell you they have never seen things so bad. So which do you think is better? 10 people making $7.25, or 7 making $9.00?

Now take Joe Smoe owner of Corporation XYZ operating as Dunkin Donuts A,B,C,D with 50 employees. His payroll has to increase $136000.00 AND he has to pay for medical benefits? Even if it only ends up being of half of the 50 employees, that's still around 200k.

If you fix the economy, and allow the free market to work, every able bodied man and woman should be able to find a job that offers everything they need. The problem is right now you have laid-off software engineers working part-time on the Geek Squad at BestBuy.(who will also be closing about 50 stores in 2013)

@deb: Some do some don't. For example, workers are not allowed to have a tip cup at the Sharon location on South Main Street. That is also true a the Emerald Mall and a number of other places. Other shops, such as Main Street Foxborough and Norfolk center do allow it. It seems to completely depend on the whim of the franchisee.

Note to Steve: My comments on Patch are my own, and have nothing to do with any position I might hold except by coincidence. The DSC website contains the state party platform and should you wish to read it, I encourage you to do so. The platform is generated and revised regularly by an open, grass roots process. In fact that process is in high gear right now. It will generate the platform that will be adopted at the July 13, 2013 Democratic State Convention in Lowell. The Foxborough Democratic Town Committee will host a platform hearing at the Foxborough Public Safety Building on Sunday, March 24, 2013.

My personal response @Steve: I do not know what the hierarchy exists behind any given DD counter. However, for entry level staff, a minimum wage of $9.00 would be satisfactory to me at present. That is why I support raising the federal minimum wage to a minimum of $9.00. Further, all DD's should allow a tip cup on the counter in addition to that $9.00 wage; many franchisees do not currently allow this. Regarding exploitation of immigrants----that can take a variety of forms, certainly not all economoic, depending upon whether the individual is here legally or illegally. People who really need a job, or who may be here illegally may be required to do all kinds of things out of fear of reprisal or dismissal--not all of them work. Please note here that I am not saying that this is the case at DD, as I have no such evidence.