SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
The Affordable Care Act’s threat to religious liberty remains undiminished with the re-election of President Barack Obama.
Prior to Election Day, the number of lawsuits against the federal mandate to provide free insurance for contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs had grown to 40, on behalf of some 100 plaintiffs — including the University of Notre Dame, the Archdiocese of Washington, Wheaton College, EWTN (the Register's parent company) and Hobby Lobby stores.
Decisions had begun to trickle out of federal courts: Two had already issued injunctions on behalf of religious business owners to prevent them from being forced to subsidize contraception, sterilizations and drugs like the abortifacient “morning-after pill.” Now that the presidential election is over, these fights will intensify.
This is the second time in six months that the mandate has escaped being swept away by national events. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court came within one vote of invalidating the Affordable Care Act, which would have stripped federal authority for the mandate. But the act survived review, leaving the rapidly increasing number of lawsuits against the mandate as the last bulwark against the mandate’s affront to conscience.
Given its campaign promises, a Romney administration presumably would have rescinded the mandate or broadened protections for religious objectors. The Obama administration has given less hope that, in a second term, there will be any meaningful change to the mandate.
After all, this is the administration that authored the mandate to begin with and — heedless of public pleas from religious leaders across the spectrum of faiths — constructed a “religious employer” exemption so narrow that the ministries of Jesus Christ, St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa would not qualify.
Back in February, the administration promised an “accommodation” for certain religious organizations, but it has left the details fuzzy and postponed finalizing it until August 2013.
But religious organizations trying to plan for the future are being harmed by the mandate now. And now that the election is past, many religious organizations are rightly skeptical that the alleged accommodation will resolve their basic concerns.
What’s Next
Going forward, the federal lawsuits against the mandate fall into two general camps.
On the one hand are some 30 lawsuits on behalf of nonprofit organizations. These include Catholic and evangelical schools like the aforementioned Notre Dame and Wheaton, as well as The Catholic University of America, Ave Maria University, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Belmont Abbey College and Louisiana College.
They also include major Catholic archdioceses, Catholic social-service providers and the world’s largest Catholic broadcasting network (EWTN).
The federal government has not responded to the merits of these lawsuits, but has instead sought to have them thrown out as premature. The government says that its non-binding promise of an “accommodation” by August 2013 means that the courts should not hear the lawsuits now — even though the mandate is a final rule that is now harming these plaintiffs’ ability to plan, hire and budget.
Unfortunately, in two of the cases (Belmont Abbey and Wheaton), the courts have agreed with the government and dismissed the lawsuits. Those dismissals will be reviewed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in December.
On the other hand are increasing numbers of lawsuits by religious business owners. These include Catholic businesses such as Hercules Industries (a heating, ventilation and air conditioning manufacturer in Colorado) and Weingartz Supply Company (an outdoor power equipment company in Michigan), as well as Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based arts-and-crafts chain founded and run by the Green family, who are evangelical Christians.
The rights of religious business owners like these have been utterly disregarded. They would not benefit from the promised “accommodation” (because it would apply only to nonprofits), and the mandate’s fines will start accumulating against them very soon.
For instance, in less than two months, Hobby Lobby faces fines of about $1.3 million per day if it refuses to include abortion-causing drugs in its plan.
The business owners have met with more success in court to date. Both Hercules and Weingartz have received preliminary injunctions from federal judges in Colorado and Michigan. A federal judge in Oklahoma heard Hobby Lobby’s injunction motion last week, and a decision is expected any day. (A fourth business, O’Brien Industrial, was denied an injunction and has appealed.)
Because these business lawsuits are not subject to any delays, the government has had to respond on the merits. Its response is startling.
The government has flatly stated that a person who goes into business to make a profit loses any right to exercise religion in his business pursuits. A kosher butcher, for instance, would presumably have no religious rights associated with his decision to stock only kosher products. A Bible seller would have no religious rights associated with the sacred texts she is selling.
The profit motive alone dissolves these individuals’ rights to exercise religion. The government apparently wants to enforce its own theology of how God and mammon should mix. But its interpretation would bar individuals from providing for their families in ways consistent with their religious beliefs.
No Legal Authority
The government’s arguments are all the more remarkable for having no legal authority to support them.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that even corporations themselves may exercise free speech rights. No one doubts, for instance, that The New York Times Company has the right to decide which articles to print and which advertisements to run.
The mandate suits are merely asking courts to recognize that business owners have some right to weave their faith into how they run their businesses — including the right not to cover drugs the owners believe implicates them in abortion. The government says they have no religious rights at all.
The administration’s unyielding posture towards religious business owners in its first term will presumably continue in its second. And the government has identified no feasible accommodation that would satisfy the concerns of other religious organizations like Notre Dame and EWTN that cannot insure drugs that violate their consciences. This election gave no indication that these violations will abate. It will be up to the courts to vindicate them.
Kyle Duncan is the general counsel for
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
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They should use Zane Benefits…..ZaneHRA works best for companies that want to offer health benefits, but cannot offer group health insurance due to high cost or participation requirements. Each employee is provided with so much money and they purchase their own insurance.
I propose that this administration is making law respecting an establishment of the religions of Darwinism, secularism, atheism, and humanism, in addition to prohibiting the free expression of religions offering employment and service to all persons, regardless of race, creed, color, etc., because all human life is sacred from conception until natural death, and religions considering promiscuity to be an intrinsic evil.
My Funk &Wagnalls; dictionary defines “religion” as “The beliefs, attitudes, emotions, behavior, ect., constituting man’s relationship with the powers and principles of the universe, especially with a diety or dieties; also, any particular system of such beliefs, attitudes, ect.” Buddhism is not theistic, but is a religion all the same. The above religions are such also! Granted they do not meet the definition under “especially,” but otherwise they do meet the definition!
Barack Oboma may have studied closely our U. S. Constitution, but lawyers also study contracts looking for loopholes!
I want to thank most of the Bishops, priests, and half the Catholic laity for making this happen. Without you, Obama could not have gotten elected. Obama thanks you.
“The government has flatly stated that a person who goes into business to make a profit loses any right to exercise religion in his business pursuits.”
Read Rev.14 Vs 16 and 17
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/hhs-threat-undiminished?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register#When:2012-11-8#ixzz2BkesK6Ij
This is a very depressing article.
Does anyone knows if I buy the “health insurance” they are talking about will I contribute to abortion with my payments?
If you purchase health insurance, you contribute to the use of birth control, abortion, and any other form of medicine that could be considered immoral. The money goes into a fund to protect everyone who purchases insurance from that company. It does not exempt anyone from the use of these funds to pay for services. In reality, the RC Church has been contributing to all forms of birth control all along. The organizations who provide their employees with insurance simply prohibit them from using their own money they pay in to purchase insurance to purchase birth control.
My question is, how is that ethical to take money for a service, then, not provide the service in the final outcome?
Seriously, get a clue.
To Chuck Furman, your understanding of health insurance is not correct. There are two possible ways that an employer group pays for insurance (if it is fully insured and not self-insured). If the group is big enough, the premium is determined solely based on that group’s own expected claims taking into account the benefits their plan covers. If the group is not big enough for this, they are “pool” rated, which I think is what you were trying to describe in your comment. In this case, though, the premium is still based on the benefits the employer wants to cover. So, in either case, if the employer does not want to cover birth control, sterilization, abortificients, or abortion, they are collecting no money from their employees for it, nor are they paying the insurance company for it.
Does anyone know if persons with Medicare will now be paying for abortions due to Obamacare? I’m disabled with a neuromuscular disease, and Medicare is my only insurance. I don’t have Rx coverage and need a $500+/mo Rx, which I can’t afford, but I won’t get a Medicare D plan, due to concerns about paying for abortions. Then, I realized a greater enormity… what if all parts of Medicare will now pay for abortions? If so, with no other options, what is a strongly pro-life Catholic to do? Thank you, Becket Fund, for your efforts in this cause!
Does anyone know if persons with Medicare will now be paying for abortions due to Obamacare? I’m disabled with a neuromuscular disease, and Medicare is my only insurance. I don’t have Rx coverage and need a $500+/mo. Rx, which I can’t afford, but I won’t get a Medicare D plan, due to concerns about paying for abortions. Then, I realized a greater enormity… what if all parts of Medicare will now pay for abortions? If so, with no other options, what is a strongly pro-life Catholic to do? Thank you, Becket Fund, for your efforts in this cause!
Is it moral to pay for prescription drug coverage and health insurance? By extension, we could ask if we should not pay taxes and renounce our USA Citizenship, because it gives us the “right” to abortion on demand. If the mandate stands, all health and drug insurance will be required to provide abortifacients and abortion procedures in their “benefits” packages. As long as we do not utilize those intrinsically evil “rights” or “benefits,” then we are good with God and the Church!
Lest my comment of 11/14, 3:28pm be misconstrued, I should have drawn the dichotomy between purchasing drug and health insurance as an individual or family, of which I wrote, and employers purchasing those insurances for their employees. An employer providing intrinsically evil “benefits” in the plan that they purchase has no control whether or not “benefits” are utilized, but would be complicit in those intrinsic evils! One purchasing family coverage should do their utmost to see that no family member utilizes those intrinsic evils, but, beyond that, one should not be held accountable.
AMDG.
Yes we will continue the effort to change President Obama Mandate forced on those with religious convictions who have the belief that we must protect the sanctity of life. More people will rally around this banner as the truth about the Mandate becomes perfetly clear. Please remember until this time in the US that no united front stood up for our religiuos beliefs but now a new united front of people, institutions and business concerns have taken up the fight. Also remember that we have a great advantage over government and that is the countless millions of terminated souls who will be praying for all that stand up to government abuses and are involved in fighting the Obama Mandate through prayers and religious and social actions. God Bless America!
LIES: Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court rule the cost of Obamacare is a tax? Therefore, aren’t we all paying more taxes under President Obama, including the middle class? How is this not a failed promise by Obama?
COSTS: The Congressional Budget Office expects Obamacare will add 16 million people to Medicaid at a cost of nearly $100 billion per year by 2019. Health insurance is expensive, with employer-provided family coverage averaging nearly $15,800 a year for a family and $4,300 for a single plan. Nominal (Bronze) plans cost $4,500 to $5,000 for single policies and $12,000 to $12,500 for family policies. Average Obamacare penalty: about $1,200 in 2016. Indeed, insurance industry experts say the Federal “penalty” estimates may be too low.
MORALITY: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, will go down in history as having the most offensive impact on U.S. Catholics than anyone else in recent memory, forcing Catholic institutions and business owners to pay for birth control and abortions through health care coverage with no conscience opt-out possibility.
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