Florida restaurant chain adds Obamacare surcharge to meal bills

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO (Reuters) – Diners at a Florida restaurant chain are being asked to pay a health insurance surcharge on their meal tabs to cover the cost for business owners of the Obama administration’s new healthcare program. Customers at eight Gator’s Dockside restaurants dotted around central and north Florida are finding a 1 percent surcharge on their bills listed as “ACA,” the letters standing for the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. A $14.56 lunch tab for Asian salad and iced tea ordered by a reporter at a Dockside restaurant in the town of Clermont, a short drive west of Orlando, included a 13-cent ACA surcharge. “Therefore, instead of raising prices on our products to generate the additional revenue needed to cover the cost of ACA compliance, Gator’s Dockside has implemented a 1 percent surcharge on all food and beverage purchases only,” the notice adds.