Today is a great victory for religious employers. Thanks to the Trump administration for recognizing the need to protect religious employers from mandates that conflict with religious and moral beliefs about the sanctity of human life
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Trump administration’s exemption of religious employers from the Affordable Care Act (ACA or known as ObamaCare) requirement to provide insurance coverage for contraception and other abortion-inducing drugs and devices in their health insurance plans. The case is titled, Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania.
The opinion is based solely upon the language of ACA that provides broad authority for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to promulgate rules defining what is to be included in the law’s requirement of “preventative care and screenings” in health insurance plans. Following the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, that held the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) protected the for-profit employer from having to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices, and subsequent directives from the Court, HHS under the Trump Administration provided exemptions for religious and moral reasons.
