Obamacare's Absurd Food Labeling Law to Begin Soon

Meals on Wheels volunteer with Pleasant View Retirement Community Macey Kimsey takes a special treat out to program participants, free pizza from Domino's on Tuesday, June 9, 2015 in Harrisonburg, Va. (Nikki Fox/Daily News-Record via AP)

If I were to point to anything in the ironically named Affordable Care Act as being its most stupid regulation, I have little doubt that you could manage to find to something even more ridiculous in it. Such is the nature of the worst piece of legislation in recent history.

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However, another rule is set to take effect soon that might just take the cake. Or pizza, in this case:

The nation’s franchise restaurants are about one month away from the imposition of new nutritional-labeling rules dreamed up by the Obama administration, another gift of the grievously misnamed Affordable Care Act. For outlets of brands with 20 or more locations, that means posting signs in the shop with calorie counts for every item on the menu and for every variation on that item.

That’s probably not such a big deal if you are, say, Raising Cane’s, and your menu ranges from one chicken finger to 100 chicken fingers. It’s a little different if you are a pizza shop, because pizza has a lot of variables.

A lot.

“We did the math,” says Tim McIntyre, an executive at Domino’s and chairman of (not making this up) the American Pizza Community, a thing that exists. “With gluten-free crusts to thick to hand-tossed to pan pizza, multiple sizes, cheeses, toppings … there are about 34 million possible combinations.” He does a pretty good deadpan delivery: “That is difficult to put on a menu.”

That’s going to be a big sign.

Pretty stupid, right?

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However, as they say on TV: but wait — there’s more.

The law requires these listings to be inside the store. The problem is, places like Domino’s and other pizza delivery places get the vast majority of their orders either online or via phone calls to the store. Remarkably few people enter a store, look at a menu, and order.

That means companies will be spending a lot of money on signs — money that won’t go toward employee pay or benefits — that will never be seen by the majority of customers. While the corporation can eat the thousands per sign without blinking, the individual franchises are going to feel that. Franchises aren’t producing massive profits — the average can make less than $50,000 per year, apparently.

For a sign no one will read.

Yeah, go ahead, Democrats. Tell me again how awesome the ACA is.

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