The Supreme Court finished its term with its usual dramatic flair with the release of the long-waited decision in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores (which is consolidated with Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius). The two cases represent a classic split in the circuits with the Tenth Circuit agreeing with Hobby Lobby as to the religious claims of the company while the Third Circuit ruled against such claims by Conestoga Wood Specialities Corp. The Court ruled that the Hobby Lobby does have religious rights, but limited the decision to closely-held corporations. Where Citizen’s United recognized that corporations have free speech rights like individuals, Hobby Lobby would do the same thing for religious rights. I will be running a column in the Los Angeles Times in the morning not just addressing this ruling but, once again, highlighting what I consider a far more important case that will be decided just a couple blocks away in the D.C. Circuit — Halbig v. Sebelius. I will be discussing the decisions today at CNN starting at 10 am and continuing to the discussion at 1 pm with Wolf Blitzer.
Hobby Lobby is a fascinating case involving the retail arts and craft chain founded by David Green and owned by his family, which also happen to be Evangelical Christians. The Greens actually do not object to all of the 20 forms of birth control under the ACA. However, they are religiously opposed to supplying four methods: morning-after pills Plan B and Ella as well as two kinds of inter-uterine devices (or IUDs). (The Conestoga company is smaller and owed by Hahn family, who are Mennonite Christians) At a running fine of $100 per employee, Hobby Lobby estimates that the federal mandate would cost it about $1.3 million a day, or roughly $475 million a year.
The religious beliefs of the family are formally integrated into their company: Green family members signed a formal commitment to run the stores according to Christian religious principles, including closing on Sunday, advertising their religious orientation. The company even plays religious music inside their stores.
The Greens challenged the provisions under the and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which imposes a high standard of strict scrutiny for the government to meet when a neutral law “substantially burden[s] a person’s exercise of religion”. (Note some amicus briefs suggest that the mandatory plan should also be barred for these purpose under the Establishment Clause). In 2013, United States District Court Judge Joe Heaton granted the company a temporary exemption from the contraceptive-providing mandate. (Conestoga directly raises free exercise arguments).
In an interesting wrinkle, an April article in Mother Jones alleged that Hobby Lobby’s employee retirement plan has more than $73M invested in mutual funds which include manufacturers of some fo the very contraception devices or drugs cited in the complaint.
The decision has sweeping application – well beyond these companies or the 49 for-profit corporations that have claimed such exemptions. The ruling addresses the very essence of a religious claim and the very essence of a corporate entity.
Closely-held corporations are not as limited as it might seem. I agree with Ginsberg that the implications are sweeping. The closely-held corporations represent a huge number of businesses. As I mentioned on CNN, the large corporations are the least likely to demand such exemptions. There are millions of family businesses that may not object not just to the ACA but renew objections to discrimination laws that force such businesses to serve same-sex weddings or engage in other activities that violate their religious beliefs. This is much like Heller and the recognition of individual gun rights. We are still working out the details on how far that goes years after the decision.
This is a major blow to the Administration which in the last ten days have been found to have violated the fourth amendment and privacy and then found to be in violation of the separation of powers and now found in violation of the first amendment and religious freedom.
We did a lot of research and decided that medi gap was the way to go as there is no network like there is with medicare advantage.
Annie, My husband just signed up for AARP United Healthcare medi gap not medicare advantage. You can go to any doctor and the co-pays are 0. The deductible is 0. The plan costs about 200 a month. That is still cheap compared to what we were paying a month through his employer.
The best litmus test we have for the inane “single payer” is the VA system. Veterans are dying to get out of it. Even stubborn socialists like Bernie Sanders, who although an ideologue, has a heart and brain, agreed to allow vets to expedite access to private health carriers. Sanders and McCain buried the hatchet and agreed to approve this private healthcare for vets measure.
The incompetent Obama Administration has the lowest % of WH staff from the private sector than any other previous administration. As their agenda implodes, they are tapping people from the REAL WORLD. I note Obama ate a piece of crow pie and hired the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble. It only took a few thousand deaths for the spoiled cult leader to put his enormous ego aside and start hiring adults.
Intelligent people don’t make assertions they can’t prove. Full stop.
Annie – you wrote
This is just a silly assertion. Intelligent people make assertions they cannot prove all the time. It is because they are intelligent that their minds make connections that the average person might not see. For instance, the Theory of Relativity is an assertion that could not be proved at the time it was made. Michael Mann asserts that man is the cause of climate change, but because he will not release the data, it cannot be proved.
Paul, I’m beginning to hear only some blah blah blah sounds coming from your comments directed to me.
“Before Medicare Advantage, the entire Medicare budget went to healthcare providers. Now the Medicare budget is shared with insurance companies and healthcare providers. How are seniors better off when private insurance companies are siphoning off 20% of Medicare dollars to keep for themselves?”
So the more Medicare adopts free market principles and makes use of corporations to deliver services the less well it performs and the less happy seniors are with it? Or did I mis understand your point?
So which is it? Are we better off with the efficiency of single payer? Or do we come out better when the discipline of the market place keeps rates low through competition?
Samanth, I agree with you the private health insurance companies are getting too much money to administer Medicare Advantage, just like Medicare Part D. I’d prefer to get them out of healthcare entirely, but Medicare only covers 80% and supplemental policies are expensive for many seniors. My sister and cousin both have some chronic diseases that people their age tend to have and they pay NOTHING above and beyond their Medicare premiums. They do have low co pays for doctor visits and meds, but it still isn’t nearly as expensive as a supplemental policy. I’d love to see private insurance out and some other form of government health care as a supplemental, OR have Medicare pay more than 80%, then we could get rid of Medicare Advantage plans entirely.
Intelligent people understand polls where people are given only 2 choices, gives you a VERY skewed reading. You’re forced to say yes or no. But, when you are give very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, very dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, no opinion, well you have a MUCH MORE accurate assessment. The historical poll gives people 5 choices. The same questions have been used for 14 years. The Jan 2014 poll had 12% very satisfied. Just like you would get regarding virtually any govt. agency. I imagine most DMV’s get ~3%. All you smart folks understand this.
Before Medicare Advantage, the entire Medicare budget went to healthcare providers. Now the Medicare budget is shared with insurance companies and healthcare providers. How are seniors better off when private insurance companies are siphoning off 20% of Medicare dollars to keep for themselves? Lots of seniors will tell you they’re happy with Medicare Advantage, even though they haven’t been sick yet to try it out. It’s like saying that you’re happy with the jack that came with your car, even though you’ve never had a flat tire to try it out. Medicare Advantage is just another variation on corporate welfare.
I heard that, in the XIXst Russia, some Skopets employers mandated their employees to forego meat, alcohol and to submit themselves to castration.
Medicare Advantage is great and yes is run by private health insurance companies, but they are strictly regulated by Medicare, which makes them not be able to screw you over like traditional private health insurance. All other forms of Medicare ALSO get a huge satisfaction rating.
“I said that my Mother got pregnant anyway with the IUD. It happens. I don’t care what that doctor says.”
To the best of my knowledge no one claimed that IUD’s or any other birth control method do not fail.
Even sterilization has a failure rate.
Failure rates for typical birth control methods range from around 26 per 100 for women using spermicides alone, to maybe 14 per 100 for male condoms, to 3 per hundred for some IUDs, to about 1 per hundred for IUDs that incorporate copper and other hormonal methods such as the pill or patch.
Angels may be perfect but men, women and everything they make are fallible or have a failure rate.
BTW you said a lot more than just your mother was unfortunate enough to get pregnant while using birth control.
You said that IUDs hurt women and kill babies that then called out liberals for not discussing the issue.
Well… aside from telling us that IUDs are like every other medical device or procedure and have a failure rate, what exactly is your point?
Medicare Advantage is private insurance. The government pays the premium. Traditional Medicare is single pay. Mayo Clinic, some years back, informed one of my family members that they no longer will participate in private Medicare, because these insurance companies are slow to pay, if they pay at all. Once people get sick and learn the horrors of private insurance, they revert back to traditional Medicare.
I was listening to the radio this morning while they discussed this case.
Years ago, there was a case where Indians were arrested for smoking peyote on a reservation. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion that we cannot carve out special rights for people based on religion. So Democrats almost universally supported the Freedom of Religion Restoration Act, which allows exactly that. And that right does not evaporate when you own a business.
Well, oops.
It looks like Dems should have been happy with Scalia. 🙂
In any case, I’ve looked more into Hobby Lobby. Apparently, they provide contraceptive coverage to employees before Obamacare ever made it mandatory. So that makes the wild-eyed claims that they want to deny women contraceptives moot. And going down the list of the 16 they do cover now, it includes an implantable rod, patches, and many birth control pills. It’s a cornucopia of choices. I honestly don’t know how anyone could get pregnant with these 16 different choices. And yet, they are treated in the copy-and-paste media (are they circulating identical talking points, because every channel is using the exact same phrases) as if they have imposed Sharia Law on their employees.
Give me a break. You know where there’s a war on women? In every single country that imposes Sharia Law. If you want to look at a war on women in the US, how about Obamacare, which doubled premiums and increased deductibles by 1100% and the vast majority of doctors don’t accept. It’s going to bankrupt women in the middle class, and it prevents them from receiving quality healthcare if physicians and hospitals do not accept it. Diagnosed with breast cancer? Too bad you have Obamacare. Good luck getting treated.
I cannot believe people don’t burst out laughing with the war on women line.
Paul,
Nope read the poll from both June and March. I didn’t mention the 80% number from June of 2014, because it only included those over age 65. 76% of people of all ages were satisfied with Medicare/ Medicaid. 80% of people age 65 and older on BOTH March and June polls we’re satisfied with Medicare. Look for yourself.
http://www.medicare.gov/sign-up-change-plans/medicare-health-plans/medicare-advantage-plans/how-medicare-advantage-plans-work.html
No Paul, Medicare Advantage is not a supplemental policy. My sister and cousin have it and they pay NOTHING above their regular monthly Medicare premium.
Medicare Advantage
http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-basics/medicare-advantage-private-health-insurance-through-medicare
My sister and cousin pay $0 above and beyond their Medicare premium. One reason is that they live in a large market, near cities, per AARP United Healthcare.
Medicare is not a blanket free thing to get when you retire, You have to have enough work credits to receive it at around 100.00 dollars a month.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssa.gov%2Fpubs%2FEN-05-10072.pdf&ei=VSKzU9CnOtKZyASKk4CoDg&usg=AFQjCNEM1m7YEsixOBdjr3Jx-DoasJ6BMA&sig2=61WzXcioj862C3OWlmdEGg&bvm=bv.70138588,d.aWw
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/news-analysis/poll-66-of-americans-satisfied-with-healthcare-system.html
80% of those 65 or older are satisfied with Medicare, from March 2014 Gallup poll.
Annie – so from March to June satisfaction dropped 4%?
@Bigfatmike if you noticed, I said that my Mother got pregnant anyway with the IUD. It happens. I don’t care what that doctor says. Sorry. Post any link you like. My point was they used to prevent pregnancy by causing a local infection. It was trivia. You may go back and read my post. They are dangerous. It is within the first amendment rights according to SCOTUS upheld. Case Closed next case
http://www.ahipcoverage.com/2013/03/04/survey-nine-out-of-ten-seniors-satisfied-with-their-medicare-advantage-coverage/
Nine out of ten seniors are satisfied with their Medicare Advantage.
Annie – Medicare Advantage is a supplement. You have to pay extra for that.