Justice delays health law's birth control mandate

[WorseBeforeBetter]

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated PressJanuary 1, 2014 Updated 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has thrown a hitch into President Barack Obama's new health care law by blocking a requirement that some religion-affiliated organizations provide health insurance that includes birth control.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor decided late Tuesday night to block implementation of the contraceptive coverage requirement, only hours before portions of the law would have gone into effect on New Year's Day.

Sotomayor acted on a request from an organization of Catholic nuns in Denver, the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged. Its request for an emergency stay had been denied earlier in the day by a federal appeals court.

Sotomayor gave government officials until 10 a.m. EST Friday to respond to her order.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/01/3499378/justice-delays-health-laws-birth.html#storylink=cpy

Wow. She was busy last night: dropping balls, issuing stays...

(Sorry if this has been posted already... just woke up. )

[WorseBeforeBetter]

1. Fucking Hobby Lobby...

Supreme Court halts contraception mandate for religious groups

....

In June, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver waived millions of dollars of fines against Hobby Lobby and a subsidiary, Mardel Christian Stores, which refused to comply with the mandate, writing that the companies were likely to win their claim that requiring for-profit companies to pay for birth control was a violation of religious protections.

The motion for a stay went to Sotomayor as the justice with oversight for the 10th Circuit. She gave the government until Friday to respond.

"Tomorrow, a regulatory mandate will expose numerous Catholic organizations to draconian fines unless they abandon their religious convictions and take actions that facilitate access to abortion-inducing products, contraceptives, sterilization, and related education and counseling for their employees," the groups said in their request for a stay Tuesday.

The Obama administration had crafted a compromise, or accommodation, that attempted to create a buffer for religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and social service groups that oppose birth control. The law requires insurers or the health plan’s outside administrator to pay for birth control coverage and creates a way to reimburse them.

....

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/31/22128010-supreme-court-halts-contraception-mandate-for-religious-groups

[Igel]

2. Sotomayor didn't look at Hobby Lobby's claims.

She decided this, on an interim basis, given a charity's claims.

Best to focus your anger on a group that helps the elderly and poor in this case for not wanting to choose between what they said would be ruinous fines or conscience-violating consent forms.

Presumably if the law made an easy out for them Sotomayor would have said, "There's a third way, you know--take it."

And, in any event, it's a stay. That is all.