DAY 63

The healthcare reform bill became law at midnight.  Companies that had threatened legal action didn’t do what their rhetoric had defined.  The suggestions that customers would boycott if they did made them reconsider and as expected private insurance companies stepped up to provide the coverage.  It was actually not as high a risk as some thought.  With the entry limited to certain windows a person could not chose to join only if they thought they had a problem.  So many people signed up that the biggest problem was handling the applications.  Many people took the minimum coverage but even that had significant benefits.  With the minimum the government support covered much of the cost.  It was easy to justify a few dollars a week but not the seventy to a hundred that the coverage would have cost before.  The insurance companies were unable to keep up with the new members.  They advertised that any policy would be retroactive to either the date the bill was effective or the post mark date of the application if they didn’t process it within three days.

Juan Ortiz called the men who were going south to his house.  He handed each of them an envelope.  In it was a letter thanking them for their service, several copies of letters of recommendation and five hundred dollars in cash.  He asked them that when they got settled send him a letter with their address.  An envelope was there for that.  He told them he may need some help in Mexico and they were certainly at the top of the list to be considered for the jobs.  That done he loaded them into the van and headed south.  He stopped at the first town after they crossed the border and he bought a bus ticket for the seven who did not make sense to continue with him and paid for the tickets. 

DAY 64

Juan and the workers continued south to Paulo’s town.  Several times they stopped to drop off a man at a bus station or town.  When they arrived only three were left.  They spent the night with Paulo.

DAY 65

Juan bought two of the men bus tickets and sent them on.  He asked the other man to stay with them for a couple days. That evening he explained the plan to Paulo and the Antonio Yanez who lived in a town nearby.  Antonio was a trusted employee that had been with them over five years but he had been in prison in Mexico before he came north.  He and Paulo would become the leaders of the new Ortiz Personnel Agency.  Manuel had founded it during his previous trip and they would be the leaders.  They would need an office and a place to store the van.  Antonio would drive it to the border but never cross.  He and Paulo would select people.  They would have to agree on any person.  He had arranged for them to be able to do background checks on them in Mexico and then make US checks before taking them north.