Posted on 07/08/2020 8:38:24 AM PDT by Red Badger
The ruling greatly expands the kinds of employers that can cite religious or moral objections in declining to include birth control in their health care plans.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to give the nation's employers more leeway in refusing to provide free birth control for their workers under the Affordable Care Act.
The ruling is a victory for the administration's plan to greatly expand the kinds of employers who can cite religious or moral objections in declining to include contraceptives in their health care plans.
Up to 126,000 women nationwide would lose birth control coverage under President Donald Trump's plan, the government estimated. Planned Parenthood said nearly nine in 10 women seek contraceptive care of some kind during their lifetimes.
The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, gives the government authority to create the religious and moral objections, said Justice Clarence Thomas for the court's 7-2 majority.
The Department of Health and Human Services "has virtually unbridled discretion to decide what counts as preventive care and screenings," and that same authority "leaves its discretion equally unchecked in other areas, including the ability to identify and create exemptions from its own guidelines," he said.
In dissent, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said the court in the past has struck a balance in religious freedom cases, so that the beliefs of some do not overwhelm the rights of others.
"Today for the first time, the court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree" and "leaves women workers to fend for themselves" in seeking contraceptive services, they said.
Women’s groups condemned the ruling. The National Women’s Law Center said more than 61 million women get birth control coverage through Obamacare.
“The Supreme Court’s decision will leave their ability to receive this critical coverage at the whim of their employers and universities," the group said. "This decision will disproportionately harm low-wage workers, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others who already face barriers to care.”
In addition, the court announced that Thursday is the last day of the term. It is expected that rulings on two cases involving Trump — the Manhattan district attorney's effort to get years' worth of his tax returns as part of a probe into hush-money payments to two women and the House Democrats' bid to obtain financial records from the Trump Organization's accounting firm and two banks — will be released on Thursday.
Since Congress passed Obamacare in 2010, the issue of which employers can decline offer contraceptive coverage has remained highly controversial.
Houses of worship and their auxiliaries were originally given an exemption, and a later rule allowed some non-profit religiously affiliated employers an accommodation: They could opt out of directly providing the coverage as long as they gave notice of their objection. Their insurer or the government would then pick up the cost of the coverage.
In a 2014 case involving the Hobby Lobby stores, the Supreme Court said a private, religiously oriented, and closely held company could get an exemption from the contraceptive mandate on religious grounds.
Wednesday's decision involved Trump administration rules that would allow publicly traded companies and large universities to claim a religious objection for refusing to provide the coverage. Even more broadly, employers and schools with any moral objection would also be exempt from the requirement.
The rules were intended to deliver on a campaign promise by Trump to roll back the coverage requirement. He said employers should not be "bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs."
New Jersey and Pennsylvania sued, saying they would have to pick up most of the cost of contraceptive coverage, and a federal appeals court last year blocked enforcement of the rule nationwide. The Trump administration and the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns who have consistently fought the contraceptive insurance requirement, defended the proposed rule.
An easy case for Dems to split on, to give the appearance of not marching in lockstep on everything.
Sounds like a win for Little Sisters of the Poor.
In dissent, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor
Additionally, roe v wade needs to be overturned, there are no provisions in the constitution that sanction the murder of unborn children.
NONE.
Hopefully will serve as some kind of “precedent” for religious exemptions to pro-sodomy laws.
The Little Sisters of the Poor win another one. Maybe now they will leave them alone.
Anyone could guess the 2 dissenters in a 7-2 ruling. Breyer and Kagan are merely 95% insane while Darth Bader and the Wise Latina are 100% lunatics.
If only Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissented, that means Obama’s other justice, Kagan, went with the majority. 7-2 is a pretty clear victory.
I think we should stop calling The ACA “Obamacare”
If states are picking up the cost, as stated in the article, how are women, children, minorities, lgbt, et al deprived of coverage if their employer has a religious exemption as alleged in the same article?
It took me a little while to find a report that showed Ginsberg and Sotomayor were the two dissenters.
The Notorious RBG and the Wise Latina clearly are hostile to religion. They dissented in this case and another religious-rights case (dealing with the "ministerial exception") decided today.
It took me a little while to find a report that showed Ginsberg and Sotomayor were the two dissenters.
LOL - ‘cause I did not read the whole NBC report. My bad.
Mea culpa.
In more normal times this would have a headline of; “A Win for the 1st Amendment ...”
Homosexuals cant get pregnant....
They don’t need this so called ‘healthcare’
How are LGBT people damaged by this ruling?
The men commit sodomy, the women are lesbians, and the transgenders are mutilated. There’s no need for contraception to begin with.
There! Fixed it.
Patriots are reminded that, in stark contrast to the rights that the states expressly constitutionally protected in the Bill of Rights and other rights amended to the Constitution, the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect the politically correct, Democratic vote-winning "right" to murder unborn children.
In other words, the politically correct right to murder unborn children was scandalously legislated from the bench by post-17th Amendment ratification, state sovereignty-ignoring activist Supreme Court justices.
Send "Orange Man Bad" federal and state government desperate Democrats and RINOs home in November!
Supporting PDJT with a new patriot Congress and state government leaders that will promise to fully support his already excellent work for MAGA and stopping SARS-CoV-2 will effectively give fast-working Trump a "third term" in office imo.
See Alito. 19 pages. Begins on page 31. Excellent.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf
It’s not part of the majority.
Did Roberts come out of his concussion delirium?
Only because he saw the numbers were safe to do so.................
If the "others" don't like it, they can go find a job elsewhere.
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