Week in Review: Holli Wouldn’t Let the Government Stand in Her Way

May 18, 2019

Holli Christensen is an entrepreneur and an expert at blow-drying and styling hair. But Arizona regulations kept her from doing what she loves—until she teamed up with the Goldwater Institute to take action.

Hairstyling has been a passion of Holli’s for years. She wanted to make that passion her profession, but there was one big problem: The state was standing in her way.

“I’ve been doing hair and makeup for my friends since high school. I always had a knack for it,” Holli said in a new Goldwater Institute video. “I actually opened up a blow-dry bar, and quite frankly, it was a huge risk. I wasn’t able to work in my own business because I’m not a licensed cosmetologist.”

Some people would let government red tape tie them down, but not Holli. Watch this video to find out what happened.

Medicare is Set to Go Broke by 2026
— but the Feds Could Fix It

Medicare, which provides health insurance to the nation’s almost 60 million seniors and disabled, is going broke. According to the most recent Medicare Trustees’ Report, the hospital insurance program will face “insolvency” in 2026 when its spending exceeds incoming payroll taxes.

That is why Americans should be appalled to learn that the current program rules financially penalize seniors who leave the program. Under current administrative rules, a senior who exits the Medicare program must also forgo all Social Security benefit payments, including those received in previous years. This is nothing short of a financial trap that most of our nation’s seniors, even those who have financial resources, cannot escape.

Goldwater Institute Director of Healthcare Policy Naomi Lopez Bauman explains more in a new article at The Daily Caller.

Supreme Court Passes on Forced Union Representation—For Now

In last year’s Janus v. AFSCME decision, the Supreme Court ruled that governments can’t make their employees pay fees to a union. As a result, some five million government employees across 22 states who had been forced to pay fees now have the freedom to choose which private organizations’ political advocacy they will and won’t support with their money, just like the rest of us.

But although those government workers no longer have to pay fees, unions in those 22 states still act as workers’ “exclusive representative” in collective bargaining. In other words, the law still authorizes public-sector unions to speak for all unionized government workers—even if some workers who aren’t union members would rather speak for themselves.

Though the Supreme Court recently declined to take up two cases that could have led to the end of exclusive representation, Goldwater Institute Senior Attorney Jacob Huebert writes that all is not lost—and that the Goldwater Institute is fighting to protect workers’ First Amendment rights. Read his article here.