Let me be clear: I am no fan of the Affordable Care Act. I think it is wrong for New Jersey and for America. I fought against it and believe, in the long run, it will not achieve what it promises. However, it is now the law of the land. I will make all my judgments as governor based on what is best for New Jerseyans.

Here’s where I part ways with the Republican Party in an enormous way: if you have cancer and you don’t have health insurance, that’s Hurricane Sandy.

But the complexities of (Obamacare) obscure a huge win for employers. In 1974, President Richard Nixon’s health-care plan proposed forcing employers to pay 75 percent of the cost of basic health insurance for their employees, though there would be some assistance for smaller businesses. In 1994, President Bill Clinton proposed forcing employers to pay 80 percent of the cost of basic heath insurance for their employees, though a somewhat confusing series of caps meant that smaller businesses would end up paying much less.

In other words, both Democratic and Republican presidents used to think the proper role for business in the American health-care system was to pay most of the cost of their employee’s health-care insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the principle is different, and much less onerous: Employers don’t need to offer health care, and they don’t need to pay for most of the cost of their employee’s health care, but if their employees are taking advantage of public subsidies, then the employer should have to pay a penalty equal to about 1/8th the cost of the average employer-provided health-insurance plan.

Some employers are still unhappy, and understandably so. The Affordable Care Act will impose new costs on them. Papa John’s, which doesn’t provide most of its employees with health insurance, is warning that it might have to raise prices on its pizza by 11 to 14 cents per pie to offset the penalties.

That might seem laughable, but it’s a legitimate reason for Papa John’s to dislike the bill. Businesses try to cut costs. One way they do that is by skimping on employee pay and benefits. The Affordable Care Act, at least in the short-term, will raise costs on businesses that have pursued that particular cost-cutting strategy.

As Slate’s Matt Yglesias has noted, that makes the Affordable Care Act an intervention on a particularly worrying change in the economy. In recent years, corporate profits, measured as a percentage of the U.S. economy have been hitting record highs, even as the share of those profits that go to workers have hit record lows.

The health-reform law won’t reverse that trend, but for the businesses that are doing the most to drive it — the ones that have cut costs and boosted profits by paying their workers very little and refusing to offer them decent health insurance — the Affordable Care Act will force them to contribute a bit more toward their workers’ health care or raise their prices. And if they choose the latter route, then fine: It levels the playing field between them and their competitors who haven’t taken a low-road approach to paying their workers. That gives pizza companies that do pay their employees well a slightly better position in the marketplace than they have today.

That won’t make Papa John’s feel better, and it shouldn’t. The Affordable Care Act isn’t helpful to their business strategy. Rather, it’s helpful to the business strategies of companies that have sought success by paying their workers good wages, giving them reasonable benefits, and delivering a higher quality product. Which should make us feel better.

Still, Papa John’s can comfort itself with the knowledge that it is not being asked to do nearly as much as Presidents Clinton or Nixon wanted it to do. It doesn’t have to give its employees health care or pay them well. It just has to pay a small fraction of the cost that the public will pay to insure its employees. It’s not as good of a deal as the status quo, but it’s a better deal than it could have expected, or than it probably deserved.

Guys, I get it: providing healthcare benefits to employees costs money. And, as a group, you tend to prefer things that do not cost that — I watch Undercover Boss. But own your layoffs and your policies. Let’s stop pretending that suddenly, with this election, bosses have been transformed into reluctant assholes.

Obamacare is just the latest excuse to wriggle out of the social contract. For many years now, full-time benefits like sick days, maternity leave, pensions, lunch hours, chairs — have disappeared by magically transforming full-time employees into ‘independent contractors’ or ‘part-time-20-year temp help.’ Wanna avoid paying half of your employees’ Social Security tax? Reclassify them as ‘independent contractors’ so they pay it all themselves! Make them fill out a 1099! ‘That’s not a full-time busboy — that’s Juan Co., LLC!’

…So let’s cut the ‘I’d loooove to be able to give employees healthcare — I just can’t!’ Let’s face the facts: pizza and coal companies are just unlucky enough to have a labor force that can’t be outsourced — you happen to be among the few industries that still has to hire Americans! I’m sure that if you could outsource your pizza-making to China, I’m sure that ‘Papa John’s’ would become Papa San’s. Which is actually (Japanese), but, you know, for the joke. You understand.

…So maybe next time, take all the millions you donated for partisan political purposes and pump it back into the type of healthcare advances that may ultimately increase business productivity! And then, we can just keep pizza out of politics.

Governor Romney said “This has to be done on a bipartisan basis.’ This was a bipartisan idea. In fact, this was a Republican idea. And Governor Romney, at the beginning of this debate, wrote and said ‘What we did in Massachusetts could be a model for the nation.’

In Massachusetts, Governor Romney did a good thing, working with Democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the identical model (to Obamacare), and as a consequence people are covered there; it hasn’t destroyed jobs, and …we now have a system in which we have an opportunity to start bringing down costs as opposed to just leaving millions of people out in the cold.

Ironically, if you repeal Obamacare — and I have become fond of this term, Obamacare — if you repeal it, what happens is those seniors, right away, are gonna be paying more than $600 in prescription (costs); they’re now going to have to be paying copays for basic checkups that can keep them healthier; and the primary beneficiary of that repeal are the insurance companies.

I have experience in health-care reform. Now and then the president says I’m the grandfather of Obamacare. I don’t think he meant that as a compliment but I’ll take it.

I’m not getting rid of all of healthcare reform. Of course, there are a number of things that I like in healthcare reform that I’m going to put in place.

Look, I’m the guy that was able to get health care for all of the women and men in my state. …I’m very proud of what we did.

Obama expects you to shell out almost three extra nickels for this hot turd pie? Fuck that — eat the nickels! You have your dignity!

…Now don’t get me wrong, folks: I believe every human being has a fundamental right to affordable healthcare. But at what price? There has to be a line that we do not cross — and it’s 14 cents!