Obama Care To Cost Local Ford Employees $280 Per Month

Area businesses bracing to break bad news to employees

One area executive has been working overtime during his days
and nights to assist local businesses find a way to break
the bad news to their employees.

If Obama Care passes this weekend, there will be a severe
choice to be made.

Either they accept a pay cut, or they will lose their jobs.

Bert Hernandez, general manager of Bird-Kultgen Ford in
Waco, said that 41 of a total of 66 employees at the auto
dealership signed a petition stating they would accept an
average pay cut of about $280 per month in order to stay
employed there if the Health Care initiative passes. Ten
other employees are on vacation and the remainder are either
on administrative leave or have said they will make other
arrangements, according to Mr. Hernandez.

The figures include the two owners, Ed and Peter Kultgen.

Other business men have sought the advice of the old time
automotive family.

When calls for assistance came through the switchboard from
other companies, "Peter said, 'Go. Just go," declared Mr.
Hernandez.

So, he went to other businesses at other locations and
worked out a similar plan to meet with the employees and
explain the situation and the dire necessity of finding a
way to pay for the intrusive, sometimes unwanted health care
plans lawmakers are pondering and will vote on come Sunday.

"They (employees) all know what this means," he said. "Bird-
Kultgen has never been political - until June. Then Peter
said, 'Now we have to be political because it's come into
our home.'"

In passing, he told reporters covering the TEA Party protest
outside Congressman Chet Edwards's office that another large
corporate organization, an international manufacturer with a
local plant, has estimated that the Obama Care package as
presently proposed would cost that multinational corporation
about $100 million the first year alone.

"You suck that much money out of the local economy and you
have trouble on your hands," said Mr. Hernandez on a visit
to Representative Edwards's office in downtown Waco.