Another high-level litigant has formally rejected the Obama administration’s latest attempt to water down an Obamacare mandate that requires most group health plans to cover birth control.
Attorneys for Priests for Life, an anti-abortion ministry, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the latest tweak to the so-called contraception mandate “impermissibly facilitates” coverage of objectionable contraceptives.
“In truth, the new regulations do nothing more than provide Plaintiffs with another avenue for violating their religion,” attorneys wrote in court papers filed late Tuesday.
Last week, the Little Sisters of the Poor, an elder-care charity run by nuns, told the 10th Circuit the administration’s attempts to water down the mandate “change nothing of substance” in their courtroom fight against the rule.
The administration had hoped to head off these appeals and ones like it with a proposal last month that lets religiously affiliated universities, hospitals and charities duck the mandate by filing an official objection with the Health and Human Services Department.
Previously, the objecting nonprofits signed a form that signaled their objection to insurers and third-party administrators, who in turn would process and pay for the coverage without involving the employers.
For years, the Obama administration has struggled to deal with moral objections to the mandate. Dozens of corporations and faith-based nonprofits have sued over the rule, resulting in a Supreme Court decision known as “Hobby Lobby” and two administrative attempts to satisfy faith-based nonprofits.
Federal courts asked administration lawyers and the nonprofits to update their legal arguments after a series of actions this summer that advanced the debate — chiefly the ruling in the “Hobby Lobby” case. It said closely held corporations can’t be forced to pay for contraceptive care if the owners have a legitimately held religious objection.
Shortly after that, the court issued an order that said Wheaton College, a Christian institution, did not have to comply with the mandate for the time being, as challenges from nonprofits work their way through the appellate courts.
Priests for Life said the Supreme Court’s actions “confirm what Plaintiffs have argued all along: The Government substantially burdens the exercise of religion whenever it forces religious believers to violate their sincere religious beliefs.”
It also said HHS’s new waiver process still makes them complicit in providing services they object to on moral grounds, including morning-after pills that they deem to be abortifacients.
The government, though, said under the new rules the nonprofit “merely informs” the administration of its objection, and it’s the government that orders the insurer or third party administrator to provide contraceptive coverage.
“It is one thing for plaintiffs to decline to provide coverage themselves,” attorneys said in court briefs. “It is quite another to insist that they have a right to veto federal regulations that impose duties on other persons.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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