Papa John's CEO Clarifies His Obamacare Comments

Papa John's CEO, John Schnatter wrote a piece for Huffington Post called "The Real Scoop on Papa John's and Obamacare," where he says that he was the victim of shoddy journalism and has no intention to cut jobs as result of Obamacare.

Reading what has been written about statements I made on the effect of the Affordable Care Act on our franchisees reminds me of a quote from Lewis H. Lapham, former editor of Harper's magazine: "People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true."

Many in the media reported that I said Papa John's is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare. I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

He said the misunderstanding occurred when he was answering a hypothetical about what his franchisees may do in response to the implementation of Obamacare.

The reporter asked what I believed Papa John's franchisees would do in response to Obamacare, not what Papa John's would do. In fact, her question was "wouldn't some business owners just cut people down like 34 hours a week so they wouldn't have to pay for health insurance?"

My answer: "It's common sense."

"The good news is 100% of the population (full-time workers) is going to get health insurance. I'm cool with that."

"We're all going to pay for it. There's nothing for free."

"And this way I get to provide health insurance and I'm not at a competitive disadvantage ... our competitors are going to have to do the same thing."

Papa John's, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations. Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100% of Papa John's corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984.