الوسم: Court:

I hate to say it but I agree with the court. Private companies should be permitted to decide the level of benefits they will provide, and then employees can decide if they want to work for a company that will not provide contraception. Insurance plans block certain things all the time. Weight loss surgury is the latest thing they encourage us to block on plans we make available for our employees.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us…ited?_r=0

By ADAM LIPTAKJUNE 30, 2024

WASHINGTON —

Requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception violated a federal law protecting religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision on Monday.

The decision, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to challenges from other corporations to many laws that may be said to violate their religious liberty.

The coverage requirement was put in place under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. It was challenged by two corporations whose owners say they try to run their businesses on religious principles: Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, which makes wood cabinets.

The health care law and related regulations require many employers to provide female workers with comprehensive insurance coverage for a variety of methods of contraception. The companies objected to some of the methods, saying they are tantamount to abortion because they can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb. Providing insurance coverage for those forms of contraception would, the companies said, make them complicit in the practice.

Activists advocated for access to birth control outside the Court on Monday.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
The companies said they had no objection to other forms of contraception, including condoms, diaphragms, sponges, several kinds of birth control pills and sterilization surgery.

The Obama administration said it did not question the sincerity of the companies’ beliefs, and it has offered exemptions to other groups on such grounds.

A federal judge has estimated that a third of Americans are not subject to the requirement that their employers provide coverage for contraceptives. Small employers need not offer health coverage at all; religious employers like churches are exempt; religiously affiliated groups may claim an exemption; and some insurance plans that had not previously offered the coverage are grandfathered in.

But the administration said that for-profit corporations like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood must comply with the law or face fines.

The cases are Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, No. 13-354, and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, No. 13-356.

The companies challenged the coverage requirement under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The law was a response to a 1990 Supreme Court decision that declined to recognize religious exceptions under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause to generally applicable laws. Congress effectively reversed that decision.

“What this law basically says,” President Bill Clinton said before signing the bill, “is that the government should be held to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone’s free exercise of religion.”

The threshold question in the new Case was whether the companies were permitted to raise a claim under the law.

The companies argued that they were, and they said the coverage requirement imposed a “substantial burden” on religious practices by subjecting Hobby Lobby, for instance, to fines of $1.3 million a day if it chose not to offer comprehensive coverage, and to different fines of $26 million a year if it stopped offering insurance entirely.

Some scholars responded that the company would be better off financially if it dropped coverage, and so does not face a substantial burden.

The administration argued that requiring insurance plans to include comprehensive coverage for contraception promotes public health and ensures that “women have equal access to health care services.” The government’s briefs added that doctors, rather than employers, should decide which form of contraception is best.

A supporting brief from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy group, said that many women cannot afford the most effective means of birth control and that the law will reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions.