In perhaps the most closely watched case of this year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and a Pennsylvania cabinet company, and held that closely held corporations can not be required to provide health insurance coverage that includes contraception.
The Affordable Care Act mandates that that employers provide health insurance that includes coverage for contraception. There are exemptions to the law for certain businesses owned by religious groups, but not for businesses that just happened to be owned by people with personal religious beliefs that don’t support contraception.
At the heart of the debate is the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which states that “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except… if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”
According to lawyers for Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, the Affordable Care Act requires them “to do precisely what their religion forbids them or face draconian consequences — including millions in fines, private lawsuits and government enforcement actions.”
Lawyers for the government argued that the RFRA was intended to protect individuals and not the owners of corporations, and that the contraception mandate places no personal burden on business owners since they are not the actual insurer and it is the employees’ choice as to whether they use that particular coverage.
Hobby Lobby had successfully argued its point to a federal appeals court agreed which found that corporations have the same political speech rights as individuals. Conestoga, which is owned by a Mennonite family, lost its argument before a federal appeals court.
More to come…
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