Liberals are outraged and conservatives are overjoyed. While the Population Health Blog is neither, it was interested enough to go to the Supreme Court's opinion page, read the majority opinion and and pull some of the more telling quotes:Just where did the contraception mandate come from?
"....the Affordable Care Act requires ... health-insurance coverage to furnish “preventive care and screenings” for women without “any cost sharing requirements.” Congress itself, however, did not specify what types of preventive care must be covered. Instead, Congress authorized the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a component of HHS, to make that important and sensitive decision. The HRSA in turn consulted the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit group of volunteer advisers, in determining which preventive services to require.
The [IOM] Guidelines provide that nonexempt employers are generally required to provide “coverage, without cost sharing” for “[a]ll Food and Drug Administration [(FDA)] approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling.”
Rights of corporations vs. the rights of individuals.
"A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of the people (including shareholders, officers, and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another. When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people. For example, extending Fourth Amendment protection to corporations protects the privacy interests of employees and others associated with the company. Protecting corporations from government seizure of their property without just compensation protects all those who have a stake in the corporations’ financial well-being. And protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty."
Religious liberty?
"...we must next ask whether the HHS contraceptive mandate “substantially burden[s]” the exercise of religion. We have little trouble concluding that it does. [The objecting parties] have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods of birth control that, as HHS acknowledges may result in the destruction of an embryo. By requiring ... their companies to arrange for such coverage, the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs."
Does this mean coverage of vaccines and blood transfusions are at risk of being litigated?
"HHS and the principal dissent argue that a ruling in favor of the objecting parties in these cases will lead to a flood of religious objections regarding a wide variety of medical procedures and drugs, such as vaccinations and blood transfusions, but HHS has made no effort to substantiate this prediction. HHS points to no evidence that insurance plans in existence prior to the enactment of ACA excluded coverage for such items. Nor has HHS provided evidence that any significant number of employers sought exemption, on religious grounds, from any of ACA’s coverage requirements other than the contraceptive mandate"
What is the way out?
"The most straightforward way ... would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the ... contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections. This would certainly be less restrictive of the plaintiffs’ religious liberty, and HHS has not shown that this is not a viable alternative."
Image from Wikipedia
