The cost of Obamacare goes beyond price hikes for burgers and fries.  It means fewer and fewer of the jobs that young people need to start out in the workforce.

Molly Braswell, a National Journalism Center intern writing for Red Alert Politics, reports:

At a Heritage Foundation event in Washington, D.C. today, Five Guys Burgers and Fries franchise Mike Ruffer said the costs incurred to comply with Obamacare was forcing him to make some very difficult decisions about how to financially manage his business.

“Likely, any added cost to the business is going to have to get passed through to the customer,” Ruffer said at the “Part Time America? – Impact of Obamacare” panel  Monday afternoon.

 This means that the average cost of food ordered at Five Guys will rise.  This, however, is not unique to one company.  Prices will rise across the board in many areas because businesses cannot shoulder the increased burdens of Obamacare.  Braswell also wrote:

Ruffer, who owns Five Guys francises in North Carolina and Virginia, explained that he signed a deal in 2004 to build 11 of the burger joints, not knowing the economy would come crashing down a few years later and that the government would mandate that he provide healthcare to employees working over 30 hours a week.

Ruffer said he thought he would be safe from the repercussions of Obamacare because he opened each restaurant under a separate Limited Liability Company (LLC) and no more than 20 people worked at any one burger place. Unfortunately, under the umbrella of Obamacare, if a person or family members own all the establishments, then they are considered one entity, bringing small businessman like Ruffer under the purview of the law.

The Five Guys owner said he employs 147 people, 60 of whom work more than 30 hours per week, which is considered full-time under Obamacare. Ruffer said he will either have to fire or reduce the hours of 31 employees in order to avoid paying for their insurance. The cost of paying for their healthcare would be added on top of the roughly $2.4 million he spent on last year’s payroll.

The burden gets worse for residents of states who accepted the "deal" in which they expand medicaid for three years under 100 percent federal funding, then pay the costs afterward.  New Jersey and Ohio, among other states, accepted the deal.  Florida indicated it would, but its legislature killed the enabling bills in committee. 

States that do accept the Obama deal will rely upon those in their twenties now to pay for their bad decisions down the road.  So those who are in college now will be hit the hardest by the ever growing costs of this disastrous legislation.