Burwell Vs Hobby

BACKGROUND On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). One element of the PPACA requires employers and educational institutions to provide health insurance for their employees beginning in August 2012. This employer-based health insurance must also include contraception coverage at no additional cost to the employee. In January 2012, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Katherine Sebelius issued regulations stating that nonprofit employers who objected to contraceptive coverage due to religious beliefs had an additional year (until August 2013) to comply with the regulations of the law (Sebelius, 2012). While churches and other houses of worship are exempt from this

Supreme Court in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby (2014), in which the Court ruled 5-4 against the application of the contraception mandate to “closely-held corporations” (such as Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties) with strong religious objections. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) (and not the First Amendment) as the basis for the decision. Justice Alito contended that there is a compelling state interest in providing a full range of contraception options, but the forms of contraception deemed unacceptable on religious grounds by Hobby Lobby and others could be provided to employees through “less-restrictive means” (e.g., government provision) that do not burden their rights of free exercise of religion. In a sharply-worded dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned the degree to which for-profit companies can exercise a religious right in refusing to provide contraception coverage, particularly since such companies employ a wide variety of people including those who do not share the same religious beliefs. In the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby decision, there has been an intense back-and-forth between proponents and opponents of the decision, and the contraception mandate promises to continue to be a major bone of contention in American politics for the immediate

As of this writing the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case of Little Sisters of the Poor House for the Aged v. Burwell, which deals with the issue of whether religious organizations can be required to certify to their insurance or to the government that they oppose coverage of contraceptives, thus triggering the provision of contraceptives by the insurance company at no cost to the religious organization. The Little Sisters of the Poor contend that the triggering that occurs when they are required to certify that they are opposed to the provision of contraception makes them complicit in an action that violates their firmly-held religious views. Whether the Supreme Court will agree is an open