Today the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear cases from several religious non-profits challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, despite the accommodation afforded them by the Administration.
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The law provides for exemptions for employers who object to paying for their workers’ birth control; they need only make a formal certification of their objections, and the costs of contraception are then assumed by insurance companies.
Sara Rose, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Pennsylvania said even if the court rules in favor of the religious groups, it won’t dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Ave Maria University’s almost four-year fight against the federal government’s contraceptive mandate will likely be resolved next year when the Supreme Court takes up its fifth challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
The Supreme Court will hear the latest challenge in March.
With reporting from The Associated Press.
A few religious organizations accepted the accommodation, but many have not, leading to a flurry a lawsuits against the administration.
They argue the administration’s rules violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government must have a compelling reason for laws and programs that substantially burden religious beliefs. The Supreme Court said the seven separate cases it granted would be consolidated, but it did not indicate how much argument time would be provided. The upcoming challenge will attempt to extend the same right to refuse birth control coverage to religious nonprofit organizations.
While the case is unlikely to be a repeat of the existential nail-biter that occurred in 2012, the portion of Obamacare that pits birth control against religious rights is headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court next spring.
Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund, which won the Hobby Lobby case and is now representing Little Sisters of the Poor and the Oklahoma City charity, said Friday that – even with the opt-out – there is still only one insurance plan involved.
“In our pluralistic society, that sort of substitution of obligations is an appropriate means of accommodating religious objectors while also protecting the important interests of third parties, such as women’s interest in full and equal health coverage”, Verrilli wrote. “The government exempts large corporations, small businesses, and other religious ministries from what they are imposing on us – we just want to keep serving the elderly poor as we have always done”, she said. The federal appeals courts, however, with one exception, upheld the government’s argument that complying with the accommodation would insulate the groups from the mandate itself.
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Wollman said it was clear the fines imposed for failing to comply with the mandate would be a substantial burden on the groups and that the government did not meet the test of proving there was no other way to meet its goal of providing women with contraceptive coverage.
