No! Business should not be forced by government to conduct their business this way.

I agree with living local. The long term consequences of this mandate is only going to raise prices for the consumer, force businesses to reduce staff, and put small businesses out of business. It sounds great in a perfect world- but businesses have to operate with profits in mind. Our government should consider this concept.

I don't blame the company I blame Obama!

When are we going to separate health insurance from employment!? My employer doesn't supply me car, homeowners, or liability insurance. So why health and dental? Give me the extra $10K a year it costs and ill buy my own

the very premise of this article is absurd ...why single out Wendy's...if we are to boycott anyone it should be politicians who enact laws like this you're right Deb Blasko !

Hey America. Don't cry. You voted for Obama now suffer the consequences. This is just the beginning.

I own a small business and can not afford to pay for health care for my four employees. I think it's fair to force businesses like Wendy's that are larger and very profitable to provide healthcare, but there should be a defined amount of profits to be included in that category. I'm hoping that's the case with the ACA. Does anyone know?

Cutting hours will only help slightly. In case you don't know, the State adds up all hours worked and computes every 40 hours into a full time employee, even if they are all part time employee hours. And Danielle, you base your comment on all businesses making enough profits to afford this and that is not always the case. What about a family business that brings in just enough to get by. With obamacare they will now not survive. What good is forcing a business to provide healthcare when that business will go under as a result! FYI - I had a discussion with a state rep. Yesterday - do you know that MA Connector- our obamacare costs MA $1Billion a year!! Not sustainable !!

I would never boycott a business that did what it thought it had to reduce expenses. As long as what they do is legal (I realize Democrats have a hard time understanding the difference between laws which exist and laws they wish existed) I will buy the products and services of that business.

Nice to see where people are going with this. I also own a business in town and payroll alone is 75% of the income. Then we need to still purchase supplies, etc. If we had to provide health care to our employees, we'd have no choice but to close the doors. I wish that weren't the case. I'd love to do anything and everything for the people I employ, but it's just not realistic. We are family a family owned business and just make it by payroll each week as it is.

For the record, I did NOT vote Obama in either time!! :) LOL

The businesses had a bad law foisted upon them. Everything the government does has consequences. While America cheered when SCOTUS validated ObamaCare, they overlooked some of its failings.

I won't boycott Wendy's because unfortunately I am addicted to the triple stacker.

I don’t blame Wendy’s or any other business one single bit. Unfortunately this is the very tip of the preverbal iceberg; and we have hit the iceberg dead square on. This healthcare law is a catastrophe of monumental proportions. It will substantially drag down U.S. economic growth for years and years to come. It will also diminish drug development, result in a massive shortages in healthcare professionals, chase American jobs overseas and levy a series of huge middle-class tax increases (e.g. 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, 0.9 percent surtax on Medicare taxes , 2.3 percent excise tax on medical equipment, 40 percent tax on comprehensive health coverage that costs more than the designated cap; and new taxes on Flexible Savings Accounts and Health Savings Accounts to name a few). The law should be renamed Obama-I-Don’t-Care.

Perhaps if we required proof of legal status before extending anything other than emergency healthcare (as well as other taxpayer paid assistance) the cost of health care would plummet and the cost of Masshealth for CITIZENS and legal aliens would be reasonable. Of course the Illegals' friends like Menino,Eldridge, McGovern, Patrick and Obama would oppose that since they put Illegals interests ahead that of CITIZENS.

Let's see how long people will boycott the 99 cent burger from a chain that does not pay health insurance when the other chain has to charge $10 fore the same burger. by the way Danielle Lizotte all businesses share their profits, it's called payroll! Where do you think that money comes from, so maybe you need to say employees may need to share their profits (the paycheck) with the company to pay for insurance (oh ya, they will by sending more taxes to government to spend money inefficiently).

Folks - look at the employee side of it as we'll. if an employer doesn't offer insurance and pay 1/3 then where are the people going to get insurance coverage? The emergency room cannot continue to be used as the uninsured's primary care. I do own a small bussiness and have offer reed health ins even though not required to. If it raises prices so be it. Taking care of employees is important!

Once again, people suggest boycotting Wendy's (who did NOT cut hours and has distanced themselves) and the local store- and neither of them are involved in any way.

The company name is being used for flash, and that harms Wendy's corporation. Boycotting the local store which is NOT owned by the local store owner in Nebraska is also unfair- yet the story shows the local store next to the headline.

I am CLEARLY not wrong. Read the comments above, suggesting that Wendy's be boycotted or treated as if THEY had done anything. THAT impression could be avoided, but that wouldn't sell as much advertising, I am sure.

No medical or sick time means employees are going to work sick, spreading it to other employees and customers, including at restaurants where we eat. Does anyone wonder why the flu is so widespread? People without insurance or sick time line up at emergency rooms after work with their sick kids, often giving up after the tired, hungry very sick kids have been sitting in the emergency rooms for 6 hours or more - I saw it when I waited 8 hours for stitches on my hand. The poor kids and their parents left at 10 pm when they discovered it would still be another couple of hours before they were seen (my stitches were put in at 1:30 am). I have seen people fired for taking time off to be in the hospital with their kids who were fighting for their lives they were so sick. Is this what America is all about? Many business owners who claim to be "hurting" are like the slumlords who live in great mansions with their half dozen 6-figure cars sitting in their multi-car garages, while taking deductions for their meals out, seasons tickets, entertainment, cars, yachts, 2nd and 3rd homes (which they allegedly use to "entertain clients") while the taxpayers have to find emergency housing for their tenants who have no heat or are overrun with rats. When taxpayers take a cold hard look at the realities and facts, they will realize the taxpayers pay for the free rides businesses get. I definitely will boycott businesses who cheat all of us by not providing basic benefits for their employees.

Adam, thank you for treating your employees, and by extension, your customers and the taxpayers, right. As for those who may boycott the local Wendy's, it is easily remedied. The local stores can simply put up a sign "we treat our employees right" and list the benefits they offer to their employees - including full time or sufficient hours to qualify for benefits. If I saw something like that, I would make it a point of patronizing the business. This country would be a better place if people would start taking pride in doing the right thing, instead of shirking their responsibilities and blaming the government and everyone else. Just look at the shenanigans of the owners of the "Upper Crust" - not only not paying their employees, but when they were fined and ordered to pay them the money they were owed, they then were fined again for deducting the money from the paychecks of the employees who received their back wages! While they were flitting between their mansions, fancy cars, boats and vacation homes, paid for by cheating their employees. And now they have declared bankruptcy, to get out of paying their contractors and suppliers. Do I want to give my business to a place like this? No way - at least not until a new owner who is willing to be a responsible business owner takes over.

Bonnaci, does Patch provide you with healthcare?

A reminder: keep your comments directed at the topic, not specific people.

Shame on the Patch for putting this up !!-it;s garbage journalism- it's phoney and not based on fact.

Very well said Irene Del Bono. We must send these scum business a message...LOUD AND CLEAR! I will ask at the Drive thru window, and at he Order here counter, about their policy, from here on out. Even the local business need a warning shot across the bow!

What is a business to do? The only way it can survive and provide jobs is to make a profit. When the government makes a business spend extra money on health care, the options are to 1. cut the # of employees; 2. cut the hours to under 30 for existing employees; or 3. raise prices. Am I missing something here?

Well said Joesarp!

Yes, raise prices to reflect actual costs of doing business, or take a cut in profit, is what I suggest the the 1%.

Businesses which are so marginal in their profitability that they "will close" if they pay for health care should probably close up anyway. They won't survive the next increase in energy prices, or building insurance, or increase in inflation anyway. To the degree this does not happen, whining about paying employees for health care is equivalent to a Chicken Little move.

Obama screwed us with this government grab and now the middle class is paying for it while businesses try to remain competitve. No, actually it makes me want to give them more business for standing up to the Dem Lib Machine that is grabbing from the middle class constantly and then blatently lying about it.

Before deciding, have you any idea of what covering employees for health care costs????
Its astounding. Have you ever run a business and tried to make a profit at it?

If you don't know the answer to that then shut up because you don't know how badly this has effected any business.

The problem was not health care coverage it was and still is runaway healthcare bills and costs at the care provider level and the drug maker level.

Thats the issues we did not address and its what will continue to kill us re insurance rates and costs.

How about we do something about the $1000 aspirin in a hospital or the $3000 per shot cancer treatment. As usual, we go and hurt the small businesses and blame business as the culprit.

Boycotting a business isn't going to change anything. Blame falls on the politicians that voted for something that they didn't read. Blame goes to those that voted Obama to a second term without fully understanding what that meant. As a former small business owner, there's no way I could have paid my employees health insurance. It's not about the want, it's about the ability to do so.

Shouldn't the business in Massachusetts already figured this out? Massachusetts has required health care for several years now.

Companies with under 50 employees are exempt from the employer mandate. You really ought to read the law and not Faux News' cartoon version..

No company, small or very large, owned by wealthy people or not, should reduce their profits to pay for healthcare for employees beyond what is legally required of them. If management believes they can succeed in the marketplace with fewer employees then that decision should be up to them. Fortunately the US is driven by a capitalistic engine.

A capitalistic engine that gets free fuel from the government safety net for its workers, and then whines when being ordered to actually pay for it. I agree with many of these comments that health care costs are out of control. I don't believe ether party had the temerity to take on the insurance industry though.

This statement says a company should not be able to provide anything for its employees not required under the law if it will reduce profits? This kind of thinking is what results in the need for laws to protect employees - the very laws many people on this list are complaining about! Profits are what is left over after the cost of doing business - and for some employers, attracting and retaining good employees by providing benefits is part of those costs. No one has commented on the outrageous salaries, perks, and platinum parachutes the heads of companies give themselves - which all come out of profits, and are paid for on the backs of employees and American taxpayers. The link provided by Danielle shows the thousands upon thousands of employees of the Walmarts, Stop and Shops, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds whose medical costs the taxpayers of MA are paying for - so that the companies can increase their profits to provide billions in benefits to a few people at the top of the corporate ladder. By your logic, the corporate management should not be given all those benefits, perks, stock options and platinum parachutes because the law does not require it. So...does your logic extend to corporate management, who take a huge chunk out of profits to pay for their perks?

No, I won't.

Businesses should be free to offer or not offer a particular benefit based on whatever they think is in the best interests of the business.

The cost of providing Obama mandated insurance is too high for many small margin low cost businesses like fast food restaurants. Higher costs leads to higher prices and lower margins both of which impair the long term financial viability of the enterprise.

The same scolds who are eager to force compliance of this onerous law would be the first to complain, and then boycott, these same businesses for the higher prices that would inevitably result.

Government mandates that add to the cost of employment lead to less employment. Econ 101.

Actually I hear whining from people about business owners or managers exercising their right to manage expenses - and profits - the way they want to (and can continue to do so as long as what they are doing is legal). Consumers have a right not to do business with any company. Business owners and managers have an equal right to hire as few or fire as many employees as they want. One perk of our market-based capitalistic engine country is that no-one is or should be guaranteed life-time job security.

It's amazing to see how utterly uninformed many of the posters on this site are on the health care law. Anyone who followed the process with any critical thinking skills applied whatsoever, knows that the law known as "Obamacare" is based on Republican ideas at it's core. The individual mandate at the center of the law was dreamed up in conservative think tanks in the 90's, and championed by guys like Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. That's why when Romney passed it in Mass, no one cried "tyranny"!! The fact is, when Obamacare was passed, the Repubs got exactly what they wanted...a windfall for the insurance companies. What's even funnier, is that all the complaints about the law by these posters would actually be solved by a truly liberal plan...a single payer. Imagine that... business would shoulder zero healthcare burden. But you wont hear that angle on the Hannity show, as truth is not Fox's strong suit.

Heh. Sorry but lots and lots of people complained when the Mass Health bill passed. They still do. Thanks to the implementation of that law, we have the highest health insurance premiums in the country.

Now, thanks to Obama (and Jim above, who seems keen on deflecting blame for Obamacare onto the GOP -- go figure) the rest of the country is beginning to feel our pain.

What make you think we have the highest health insurance premiums in the country? Do you have some facts to back that up - adjusted for MA higher costs of living? Re-read the article - the employer mandate doesn't go into effect until 2014. So employers cutting employees now claiming it is because of Obamacare are flat out lying. It's just like the coal companies, who are claiming they are closing their mines because of regulations, when it is clear that the fracking and cheap gas prices have severely reduced the demand for coal. And from all the deaths and mine accidents caused by failure to implement required safety precautions and drilling in a manner prohibited by regulation, they ignore regulations anyway. Same with big oil, whose CEOs only concern is "getting back to their lives" - i.e., they could care less about the loss of lives or damage their cheating caused. And they are still lying, paying for ads that say everything is back to the way it was, when nothing is further from the truth. As for Obamacare having been proposed by the GOP first (designed to add profits to line the pockets of insurance companies), not only is it true, but it was speculated to be one of Romney's biggest stumbling blocks, distancing himself from Obamacare while bragging about implementing Romneycare, a GOP-based idea. Too many people conveniently forget facts that conflict with what they choose to believe, as in "my mind is made up - don't confuse me with the facts."

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/News/News%20Releases/2012/Dec/1648_Schoen_state_trends_premiums_deductibles_2003_2011_1210_EMBARGO.pdf

Here's one study. I have read countless other studies and articles that support the fact that Mass has the highest insurance premiums. Of course, that honor may soon be lost thanks to Obamacare.

And despite your protestations to the contrary large junks of ObamaCare have already been implemented -- remember those thousands of waivers from the law that Obama granted his friends last year?--including taxes and employer requirements.