Post-
Hobby Lobby, anti-Obamacare forces are not having much luck getting another challenge to the law's contraceptive mandate to advance. Another challenge
fell on Friday.
A panel for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that requiring religious objectors write a letter to the government declaring they seek to opt out contraceptive coverage does not constitute a substantial religious burden.
"In the process, eligible organizations are provided the opportunity to freely express their religious objection to such coverage as well as to extricate themselves from its provision," the decision, written by Justice Rosemary Pooler, said. "At the same time, insured individuals are not deprived of the benefits of contraceptive coverage."
Currently, certain religious organizations that say covering contraceptives for their employees' insurance plans violates their faith have two options to opt out: they can file a Department of Labor form to a third-party administrator or they can send a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services expressing their objection. From there the HHS notifies a third-party administrator, which in turn, sees to it that the employees still get contraceptive coverage but that it is not paid for by the objecting employer. That latter route was created in response to a Supreme Court order after its Hobby Lobby decision in 2014 and finalized last month.
Thus far, courts are not buying the argument that signing a piece of paper violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or that just having an employee have her contraceptive care covered by the insurance company makes the employer complicit in doing something they find icky. The accommodation described above has satisfied a number of courts in a variety of challenges. One of those cases brought by The Little Sisters of the Poor, has been appealed to the Supreme Court. It's a question whether the court will take it. So far there hasn't been a circuit split—two appeals courts disagreeing on the issue. That's not strictly a requirement for the Supreme Court to take a case—they didn't wait for one when they took the
King challenge to Obamacare's subsidies on the federal insurance exchange. Once again, stay tuned.