Heidi Alexander: “I thank the Senator. I listened with interest to the former Governor of North Dakota and the former Governor of…”

“I thank the Senator. I listened with interest to the former Governor of North Dakota and the former Governor of Nebraska. Let me give a specific example. In response to the question, after the passage of the health care law, I met with a number of representatives from chain restaurants. Chain restaurants are the kind at which we go out to dinner for a modest cost. They are among the largest employers in America. They employ largely low-income and young people--people who are the waiters and waitresses we see when we go into Ruby Tuesday or O'Charley's or one of these other places, and usually it is someone with a part-time job or somebody who is working his or her way up. Many of those companies offer some health insurance to their employees. At one of the companies, Ruby Tuesday, headquartered in Tennessee, the chief executive officer told me the cost of the health care law to his company would equal the profit of the company that year. This is a company with several billion dollars in revenue. One of the companies that is even more successful than Ruby Tuesday in terms of profit, and is larger, told me their goal was to have 90 employees per store. But after the health care law, they said they would have 70 employees per store in order to comply with the cost of the health care law. This not only raises the cost of business, but it reduces employment in the United States.…”