The president promised that his health care law would grow on us. Well, something’s growing all right — the system’s premiums! When enrollment starts for the new coverage period on November 1, policy shoppers will be lucky to be staring down hikes of at least 25 percent — and that’s just the average! In some states, the sticker shock is enough to make Americans sick, which is ironic, since they won’t be able to afford the coverage they’ll need to get over it. The changes are striking in places like Arizona, where premiums for a typical 27-year-old buying “a benchmark ‘second-lowest cost silver plan’ will jump by 116 percent.”

And here’s the kicker, they’ll have significantly less plans to choose from when they do. Paying more for fewer options? Sounds like government health care to me! With more insurers running for the exits after five years of crippling losses, the pool of plans is shrinking. A sizeable chunk of Americans (one in five) will be down to one insurer, thanks to the majorly scaled back roles of industry heavyweights like Humana, UnitedHealth, and Aetna. Obamacare has been so crippling to these companies’ bottom lines that they’ve had no choice but to minimize their involvement in the exchange– or worse, drop out altogether. In just one year, the administration admits, “the total number of HealthCare.gov insurers will drop from 232 this year to 167 in 2017.” Like most Americans, they simply can’t afford to keep burning through dollars to prop up a faltering system full of sick customers.

After six years of the president’s spectacular failure, it’s become abundantly clear: health care insurers can’t make a living — and Americans are forking over theirs for the most basic coverage. And while the penalty for not having insurance takes a healthy jump next year, most experts predict more people will choose that hit than the president’s overpriced excuse for health care. “Overall,” the AP warns, “it’s shaping up to be the most difficult sign-up season since HealthCare.gov launched in 2013 and the computer system froze up. Enrollment has been lower than initially projected, and insurers say patients turned out to be sicker than expected.”

And unfortunately, the backbreaking costs are just part of the equation. As Gerri Willis points out on Fox News, private policy holders aren’t spared. The blast zone of the “Affordable” Care Act has already widened to the broader industry. Its influence doesn’t stop at the gates of the program, she writes. “Massive mergers have changed the way physicians do business all over the country… Premium and deductibles aren’t just on the rise for Obamacare enrollees, but for everyone. The law changed the entire health care industry. There is no way to back out smoothly and return to a system that clearly worked better.”

Republicans could have told everyone that! They’ve been trying to repeal the law since it passed, prophesying the same doom since the dawn of 2009, when the president first trotted out his plan. Now, more than 50 repeal votes into this disaster (which includes 1,500 votes from Democratic members alone), even Bill Clinton called the law “the craziest thing in the world.” “The president recently compared Obamacare to a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, and he’s right: this law is blowing up. But at least you can return the phone,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) half-joked.

And while Obamacare may not technically be on the ballot next month, you can bet that its fate hangs in the balance. The $300 billion failure is one of the many things voters hold in their hands heading into the presidential election. “It’s over for Obamacare,” Donald Trump told a Florida crowd. But that’s only true if the nation rises up and elects a leader committed to replacing it with a patient-centered plan that respects people’s needs, freedom, and wallets. To see how the candidates stack up on the economic sinkhole of Obamacare, check out FRC Action’s Presidential Voter Guide.

Originally published here.

The Gender Debate: It’s Elementary!

By the third grade, most kids haven’t taken biology — so we shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t understand their own! Still, some schools seem all too eager to let children redefine their realities with ridiculous gender policies that cater to the confusion of the Left. Parents in Dripping Springs, Texas are finding that out the hard way in the latest hotspot of a nationwide bathroom debate that continues to boil over in local communities across the country.

Like most people, moms and dads were appalled that officials at Walnut Springs Elementary would give an eight-year-old boy sweeping access to the girls’ restrooms without bothering to consult families. At a recent board meeting, packed to the gills with upset adults, fathers fired back at the district’s negligence. “There was no notification from the principal, and that is a big issue when talking about the safety and security of our students,” Eric Phillips, a dad of two daughters fumed. “You hear about the discomforts of transgender students. But what about the girls being exposed? Once you allow someone to say, ‘I should go into another bathroom,’ everyone will be able to go into that bathroom.” Blake Stotler, who also has two young girls, was furious that Dripping Springs would take the matter into their own hands. “This district has violated our trust for a lack of transparency,” Stotler said. “An accommodation that was given directly affects my daughters, and we were not informed. This affects the emotional, physical and mental well-being of my daughters, with unsupervised bathrooms that have children of opposite sex.”

Of course, districts aren’t consulting parents! They know what the answer would be — and it’s the same as the courts: No! Already, federal judges have put similar policies on hold in Texas, which is just one of the states battling the president’s edict on the issue. Unfazed by the uproar, Superintendent Bruce Gearing blamed the decision on the district’s so-called “non-discrimination” policy (which apparently allows the schools to discriminate against the other 99.9 percent of students). “The policy says that we shall not discriminate against any child for any reason stated in the policy,” Gearing said. “I feel confident we are making the best decisions in the best interest of individual children in individual circumstances. We accommodate students on a daily basis for lots of different issues.” Our friends at Texas Values are encouraging families to hold the district accountable. “These parents, specifically those who have contacted our office, are concerned about the privacy and dignity of all children,” said Nicole Hudgens, “and we stand with them.”

Fortunately, so do state leaders. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) have led the charge against the administration’s explosive mandate that public schools and universities open their locker room, shower, and bathroom doors to this kind of gender chaos. But if President Obama thought Americans would just step aside and let the administration steamroll parents, he was mistaken. And, like so many issues, the presidential election is going to have a deciding impact on this entire transgender debate. We already know where Hillary Clinton stands on the matter. Back in April, her campaign was clear that, as president, she’ll pick up where Obama leaves off to force this agenda on American families. “Hillary Clinton applauds the Obama administration for taking actions this week to stand up for the rights of the LGBT people — and particularly for the rights of transgender people — across the country. As president, she will fight to make sure all Americans can live their lives free from discrimination.” (Unless, we’ve learned, you’re a heterosexual, conservative, Christian, concerned parent, or all of the above.)

Originally published here.

Justice Is Served… with an Ethics Complaint

Upholding the Constitution used to be a requirement of U.S. judges. In Alabama, it’s a liability. Americans watched in disbelief as the Left went after Chief Justice Roy Moore with a vengeance, recently unseating him for bogus ethics complaints. And what were those complaints? That he dared to defend the state’s constitution on marriage and judicial process after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling.

Now, the attack dogs at Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are at it again, sicking the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission on fellow state supreme court justice Tom Parker for supposedly violating a gag order on issues under litigation (even though his comments didn’t “have a reasonable likelihood of affecting the outcome or impairing the fairness of that proceeding”). Most Americans are well aware of where SPLC stands on the marriage issue, since it helped inspire the shooting at FRC in 2012 over our position. But despite being linked to domestic terrorism in federal court, some people still take the SPLC’s complaints seriously.

Fortunately, the state’s commission wasn’t one of them. This week, they vindicated Parker — thanks in part to Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, who represented him. “Shame on the SPLC for filing this politically motivated complaint against Justice Parker,” Staver told reporters. Frustrated that SPLC was able to exploit an antiquated part of the state’s judicial code, Mat explained that the next step is to challenge the rule. “The speech restrictive Judicial Canon clearly violates the First Amendment. The Canon is so broad that it prevents judges from commenting on any case pending anywhere in the county, even if they are teaching students in law school.”

Of course, the irony of the case is that liberal justices in much higher places — the Supreme Court, for one — were outspoken about their support for same-sex marriage despite being in a decision-making position on the ruling. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan both presided over same-sex marriage ceremonies as the same-sex marriage case was on its way to the Court, leading to loud calls for their recusal on Obergefell. It’s an incredible double standard. Liberals demand submission to their declared orthodoxy to the point where people can’t even challenge it. Once they have a favorable decision from the courts, it’s etched in stone. But if conservatives win a case, it’s somehow illegitimate and must be overturned. Welcome to the Tolerant Left. Beware: it’s a one-way street.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.