Papa John’s Pizza CEO John Schnatter has apparently had trouble swallowing the results of this year’s election, as he has continued his public relations offensive against President Obama‘s Affordable Care Act by insisting that his company’s owner-operators would cut employees’ hours in order to avoid having to cover them under the new law. Schnatter claimed, this past summer, that the law would cost Papa John’s customers 11 to 14 cents per pizza (according to Forbes, it’s actually about 4 cents per pie), but now figures his franchise owners are so greedy that they’ll shave that margin even further by screwing their employees out of health benefits with scheduling gimmicks.

On Monday night’s The Ed Show, host Ed Schultz blasted Schnatter’s ostentatious wealth in the face of such cheapitude, pointing out that while he begrudges his employees a dime’s worth of health insurance, Schnatter gave away 2 million pizzas as a promotion, and lives on a ridiculous estate with a turntable for his limousines:

But now, he”s trying to convince people that the people who own his franchises, who pay John Schnatter a fee to use the good Papa John’s name, and must, therefore, abide by the company’s policies, won’t even eat that 11 to 14 cents, and will cut their employees’ hours below the 30 hour threshold requiring them to provide health insurance. This is, itself, a completely fallacious argument, since if it’s true, they must already be doing it. Papa John’s has alwayshttp://www.papajohns.com/careers/benefits_01.shtm"> offered health insurance to full and part-time employees, as many corporate employers do, and those benefits are based on the number of hours worked. Schnatter is admitting that his franchisees are baiting employees with the promise of health benefits, but will manipulate their schedules to avoid providing them. That may or may not be true, but it’s not something a businessman ought to be bragging about. Those owner/operators are paying big franchise fees, and getting absolutely poisonous PR in exchange.