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Hobby Lobby Wins at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court narrowly decides that employers, if objection is as a matter of religious principle, do not have to provide Obamacare-mandated contraceptive coverage. In a decision that had the conservative wing of the court decide in the majority, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was used to determine that the contraceptive mandate was against established law. The minority stated it allows companies the ability to opt out of many laws under a wide umbrella of 'religious beliefs'.
Catholic schools and other organizations who have similar lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), may find their positions strengthened somewhat by the ruling. Would you have sided with the majority of the court?
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that employers with religious objections can opt out of providing contraception coverage under Obamacare.
The ruling deals directly with only a small provision of Obamacare and will not take down the entire law but it amounts to a huge black eye for Obamacare and its backers. The justices have given Obamacare opponents their most significant political victory against the health care law, reinforcing their argument that the law and President Barack Obama are encroaching on Americans’ freedoms.
“Under the standard that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] prescribes, the HHS contraceptive mandate is unlawful,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
(Also on POLITICO: Hobby Lobby ruling full text)
The court’s four liberal justices called it a decision of “startling breadth” and said that it allows companies to “opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The court appeared to reject, 7-2, the Obama Administration’s argument that for-profit companies cannot assert religious rights under RFRA. Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the portion of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent that argues companies do not have such rights. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan did not join that section and did not explicitly state their views on the point.
The decision could open the door to other closely held corporations seeking to withhold coverage for other medical procedures at odds with firm religious beliefs. It marks the first time that the Supreme Court has allowed companies the ability to declare a religious belief – a decision that could reverberate far past the Affordable Care Act to other laws and issues.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Hobby Lobby aims for Obamacare win, Christian...)
In the short term, the ruling appears to allow the owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties to opt out of the health care law’s requirement that they provide all FDA-approved forms of birth control in their health plans.
The court’s latest decision promises to reignite a national debate over women’s health and access to contraception ahead of this fall’s mid-term elections. It is likely to force House and Senate candidates to answer for whether they supported the contraception coverage, a provision that’s more politically popular than the law itself. Advocates have promised to make it an election issue.
The Obama administration and women’s health groups have warned that if they lost in the Supreme Court, the ruling could have much broader health coverage implications. If a company can skirt the contraception requirement, what’s to prevent another employer from objecting to providing access to vaccines or blood transfusions on religious grounds, they asked.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, warned that the ruling that would have wide repercussions and “untoward effects.”
“Although the court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private,” she wrote.
The Obama administration argued that the requirement wasn’t a mandate at all because the companies could have dropped coverage.
“We doubt that the Congress that enacted RFRA — or, for that matter, ACA–would have believed it a tolerable result to put family-run businesses to the choice of violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or making all of their employees lose their existing healthcare plans,” Alito wrote for the court.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Poll says most side against Hobby Lobby)
The court’s conservative justices also accuse the Obama Administration and the dissent of questioning the religious beliefs of the families that own the two closely-held companies, in particular the owners’ position that providing the contraceptive coverage would put a substantial burden on their religious views.
“HHS and the principal dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. For good reason, we have repeatedly refused to take such a step,” Alito wrote.
Ginsburg and the dissenters sharply disagreed with the pointed critique.
“The Court levels a criticism that is as wrongheaded as can be. In no way does the dissent ‘tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed,” she wrote. “Right or wrong in this domain is a judgment no Member of this Court, or any civil court, is authorized or equipped to make. What the Court must decide is not ‘the plausibility of a religious claim…’ but whether accommodating that claim risks depriving others of rights accorded them by the laws of the United States.”
Hobby Lobby and its supporters, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the decision.
He said the court made clear that “the Obama administration cannot trample on the religious freedoms that Americans hold dear” by requiring businesses to cover birth control in employee health plans under the Affordable Care Act.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Takeaways from the Hobby Lobby arguments)
McConnell called Obamacare “the single worst piece of legislation to pass in the last 50 years” and praised the court for agreeing that the contraception requirement violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The challenges were brought by the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., a national craft store chain owned by evangelical Christians with more than 13,000 employees, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a small Pennsylvania cabinet company owned by Mennonites.
The owners of both said that they have religious objections to providing access to certain forms of contraception – Plan B, Ella and certain intrauterine devices, which they call abortifacients — in their employee health plans. They had the backing of the Catholic bishops, several Republican lawmakers and at least 50 other for-profit companies that have filed similar legal challenges.
There is a separate string of lawsuits filed against the same policy by religious-affiliated groups, such as Catholic schools.
During a rare 90-minute session of oral arguments before the justices, the companies argued that the Obama administration is forcing them and their owners to set aside deeply held religious beliefs by requiring them to provide contraception in their employee health plans. The owners said they cannot have any role in providing access to certain forms of contraception without having to violate those beliefs. Their attorney, former Republican solicitor general Paul Clement, said that because the Obama administration has provided some exemptions to the rule – for churches and certain nonprofits – it should be willing to exempt companies, too.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-dec...
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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This is so wrong! The point of having a corporation is to separate the business entity from the person(s) who own it's shares of stock. Mostly for liability and tax purposes. If these religious zealots want to run the business under the beliefs of the person then they should have to do so with a dba(doing business as) for example john smith dba bobbin nobbers and not a PC Plc llc Inc or s or c corp.
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