SCOTUS to hear another case on the ACA

[Jim]

Jul 2, 2014 9:48:13 GMT -6 stevec said:

Jul 2, 2014 7:46:39 GMT -6 Jim said:

I disagree that the ruling could be interpreted to justify denying anyone birth control of any type desired.  For example, just because the employees don't get the four particular forms of birth control that Hobby Lobby objected to for free does not mean that they are denied birth control.  Male employees of Hobby Lobby (and all corporations) still have to pay for their own condoms for example, since condoms are not covered under the ACA.  We have a crummy lobby I guess.  No sane person would say that the ACA denies men access to condoms just because they are not covered by insurance.

Jim

What would happen if a devote Catholic owner of closely held corporation claimed that his/het religious beliefs forbade the use of all contraceptives? I know this would be an extremely rare circumstance, to the point of being negligible, but it could happen. This sort of nonsense usually finds a way into the court system nonetheless.

We really need more context to discuss this.  In many instances an owner can fire an employee for any reason or no reason at all.  So, if this hypothetical owner fired someone in an "at will" state, merely because they used contraceptives, that person might be out of luck.  On the other hand if an owner is not permitted to fire at will because of a statute, court ruling or contract, I would think that the the owner would absolutely lose the resulting lawsuit because the scope of the Hobby Lobby case is very limited.  No individual has a right under the RFRA or 1st amendment to force their religious convictions on another!  This is the key subtext of the Hobby Lobby case.  The owners won because the government was forcing the owners to pay for and therefore become complicit in a type of birth control the owners find objectionable.

If the owners had tried to force the employees to conform to the owner's religion, the employees would rightfully crush them in court.

J

[ken]

Well, I guess the answer is known to all now.

With all of the ruckus that has been on the media, my understanding is that the following is true:

Despite what we have heard in the media, it is not. Hobby Lobby’s health insurance plan offered to employees has long covered many contraceptives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as interpreted by the Department of Health and Human Services, requires all health insurance offered by business to include twenty drugs under the rubric of contraception. Four of these drugs are really abortifacients, drugs designed to prevent conception and, if unsuccessful, to induce abortion. In other words, if life begins at conception, as Hobby Lobby believes, then these drugs, after conception, can destroy embryos, which all of us were very early in our life. Hobby Lobby explains its position quite clearly on its own website.

missouriintelligencer.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/is-the-hobby-lobby-case-about-contraceptives/

If this is the case, then one can only wonder what the real issue was for those who were anti-Hobby Lobby.  It also begs the question of why the media didn't mention this detail

[stevec]

We've known this all along. I believe Jim posted what Hobby Lobby did and didn't want to pay related to contraceptives. It was also reported in most all media outlets.

The issue was whether or not a for profit corporation could assume the religious perspectives of its owners. SCOTUS decide that closely held corporations could assume those perspectives.