On May 16, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously made a decision to send the Zubik v. Burwell case, which challenges the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement for employers, back to the lower courts. When the case eventually returns to the Supreme Court, as it surely will, a new justice will have joined the Court to fill Scalia’s place and break the tie, at least that is the hope.
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The lack of a resolution leaves the government able for now to ensure that women covered by faith-based groups’ health plans have access to cost-free contraceptives.
The Supreme Court is now operating with just eight justices following the death of Antonin Scalia in February. It appears members of the Court believe there is a way for an employer to object to the insurance company at the time the coverage is negotiated so that it can avoid providing the offensive drugs and devices while forcing the insurance company to pay instead.
Today’s opinion does only what it says it does: “affords an opportunity” for the parties and courts of appeals to reconsider the parties’ arguments in light of petitioners’ new articulation of their religious objection and the government’s clarification about what the existing regulations accomplish, how they might be amended and what such an amendment would sacrifice. The justices have upheld the most significant parts of the president’s health care law – the individual mandate and the health insurance subsidies – but have ruled against the law’s Medicaid expansion and one aspect of its birth control coverage rules.
The court saying unanimously Monday it will not issue a ruling for a religious group opposed to the contraceptive mandate under Obamacare. The opposition objected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which says that government mandates that significantly impact religious practices deserve additional deliberation.
The justices in previous decisions since 2012 had fended off other major conservative challenges to the Obamacare law, considered President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.
Priests for Life, one of the petitioners in the case, said Monday, however, that they will strive for a mutually beneficent solution. “But I haven’t heard anybody make the argument that leaving the Supreme Court of the United States short-staffed is somehow good for the country”.
The court’s ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts has stressed on the fact that the court is not issuing an opinion on the merits involved in the case.
The combined cases are known as Zubik v. Burwell. “We look forward to addressing the remaining details as we advance these cases in the lower courts”.
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The court’s unanimous ruling didn’t take sides on the religious liberty questions that the Catholic hospitals raised. A non-Catholic woman might go to work for a Catholic elementary school and expect that the school, because it is not a church itself, will provide her with insurance that includes contraceptive care like IUDs, birth control pills, and the morning-after pill.
