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Physicians’ View of Supreme Court on an Issue of Public Health

Posted in Affordable Care Act, Curation, Dialectic, Evolutionary cognition, Federal Budget Appropriations, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Health Law & Patient Safety, Healthcare costs and reimbursement, Healthcare Reform, Historical relevance, Law and Medicine Conflicts, Leadership, Power, Social Interlocking Connections, Medical Devices R&D Investment, Personal Health Applications: Tech Innovations serves HealhCare, Reproductive Biology & Bio Instrumentation, tagged blood transfusion, closely-held corporations, Medical Ethics, medicine, physician-patient relationship, Public health, Religion, reproductive medicine, RFDA, science and religion conflicts, United States Supreme Court, womens' health on July 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Physicians’ View of Supreme Court on an Issue of Public Health

Curator: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Where has the reason gone?

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/07/07/where-has-reason-gone-2/

Justice Ginsberg written dissent – Third Part

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/07/08/justice-ginsberg-written-dissent/

The physicians’ view of Supreme Court on an issue of public health

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/07/08/the-physicians-view-of-supreme-court-on-an-issue-of-public-health/

Reason in Hobby Lobby

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/07/08/reason-in-hobby-lobby/

Physicians’ View of Supreme Court on an Issue of Public Health

The physicians are under considerable stress. They have a minimum of 8 years of post graduate university education to practice as a generalist or in a medical, pediatric, gynecological or surgical related specialty. A significant loss is incurred in the cost of loans for education to many. A significant sacrifice is made in time for family. A primary obligation is incurred toward the wellbeing of the patient, and the community that has to be respected and protected by civil law.

Supreme Court Issues Hobby Lobby Decision

By Joyce Frieden, News Editor, MedPage Today Published: Jun 30, 2014

The Supreme Court has struck down the Affordable Care Act requirement that employers must include no-cost contraceptive coverage in employee health insurance plans. The 5-4 decision decision issued today in the Hobby Lobby case (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.) follows conflicting appellate court rulings in cases involving businesses that objected to the ACA’s birth control requirement on religious grounds. The businesses said the ACA stepped on their religious freedoms.

The 2010 health law mandates that all health plans provide preventive services — including birth control — free of cost-sharing. But some corporations — most notably arts-and-crafts giant Hobby Lobby and its sister company Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain — sued the Department of Health and Human Services to be exempted from having to comply with the mandate. In its 5-4 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court ruled that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, “which prohibits the ‘Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion’” unless it shows that doing so is “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and “is the least restrictive means” of doing do. The decision summary also notes that the Department of Health and Human Serivces (HHS) “argues that the companies cannot sue because they are for-profit corporations, and that the owners cannot sue because the regulations apply only to the companies, but that would leave merchants with a difficult choice:

give up the right to seek judicial protection of their religious liberty or forgo the benefits of operating as corporations.

RFRA’s text shows that Congress designed the statute to provide very broad protection for religious liberty and did not intend to put merchants to such a choice.” Donna Harrison, MD, executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (AAPLOG), noted that Hobby Lobby was in particular objecting to very specific contraceptives — the emergency contraceptive Ella and intrauterine devices, which she noted are capable of killing embryos, either by preventing their implantation or killing them after they have been implanted.

Art Caplan, PhD, director of the medical ethics division at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, oberved “decision could have a very negative impact” on women’s ability to obtain contraception, and “it could affect many women even if only a small percentage of companies followed suit.” “The other problem,” he told MedPage Today in a video interview, “is that if your employer says ‘I’m not covering contraception,’ you may decide to go with methods that don’t involve pharmaceutical control, or you may rely on something like emergency contraception” — decisions that could lead to more abortions, which would be

an ironic outcome since many employers’ objections to contraception revolve around their objections to abortion.

Harrison, of AAPLOG, noted that the decision should be reassuring to physicians who object to prescribing particular forms of contraception that they see as abortifacients, since insurers may have been considering excluding such doctors from their provider networks if the mandate had been upheld. “This will help incentivize insurers to not exclude ‘conscientious doctors’ from their networks,” she said.

More Physician Groups Weigh In

Many of the other physician groups issuing statements today expressed disappointment in the ruling.

“Allowing for-profit employers to exclude coverage for contraception is itself deeply concerning because of the demonstrated adverse impact it will have on women’s health,” David Fleming, MD, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a statement. “And, “the ruling clearly does not preclude for-profit employers from challenging such mandates (vaccinations), or the courts from granting further coverage exemptions.”

Rebecca Sokol, MD, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Washington, said in a statement that her organization “profoundly disagrees” with the decision. “Allowing an employer to impose their beliefs about reproduction on their staff is simply wrong, particularly when those beliefs are

so clearly misinformed on the scientific and medical facts,” Sokol said.

“In no other field of medicine do we allow employers to substitute their judgment for that of patients and physicians; it should not be allowed just because the subject matter is reproduction.”

Between Women and Their Physicians

Lin-Fan Wang, MD, reproductive health advocacy fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health in New York City, said in a video interview that

“decisions about contraception should really be made between a woman and her doctor, and not by her employer.”

Wang recounted the story of one of her own patients, a woman who had recently had a baby and then went back to work, and was having trouble remembering to take her birth control pills. “She chose one of the intrauterine devices … because it was one of the most effective forms of contraception and she didn’t have to think about it every day,” she said. “Luckily her insurance plan covered the cost of this very expensive form of contraception, but

under the ruling today, patients like [her] might not be able to choose that method

and she may end up having to choose a method that is hard for her to take or she’s not happy with.” Reproductive rights groups also expressed their concerns. Bebe Anderson, JD, director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York City, called the decision “an affront to women of this country.”

“As Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg recognized in her dissent, this decision makes it very difficult for women to get some of the best long-acting reversible forms of contraception,” Anderson told MedPage Today in a video interview. “For example, IUDs are as expensive as 1 month’s pay for someone working at minimum wage.”

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, called the ruling “stunning.” On a call with reporters she said it was no coincidence that the majority opinion was decided by five male justices. “It is endlessly frustrating for women that decisions about their healthcare are being made by people who never need to use birth control, and it is no coincidence that all three women on the court signed today’s dissent,” Richards said. On the same call, Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, said the decision was “a bitter pill for women to swallow …These [plaintiffs] and other closely held companies

will now have license to harm their female employees in the name of the company’s religion, and
ignore the moral and practical considerations of women themselves.”

Other Implications

Several commenters noted that, although the majority opinion specifically states that this ruling does not apply to religious objections to other healthcare benefits such as vaccinations and blood transfusions, this opens up the way for plaintiffs to sue about those as well. “Regardless of what they said, they’ve opened Pandora’s box and set a precedent,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in June 2013 that

Hobby Lobby should be given the opportunity to show its religious beliefs would be violated by either complying with the law or being forced to pay large fines.

Hobby Lobby faced penalties amounting to $1.3 million a day starting in the summer of 2013 if it didn’t provide FDA-approved contraceptive methods in its self-insured health plans, which cover 13,000 employees. But a court issued an injunction in July that prevented the penalty from taking effect.

A rule from HHS finalized last summer exempted churches and other nonprofit religious organizations that object to contraceptive coverage. But private businesses such as Hobby Lobby weren’t exempt. UPDATE: This article, originally published on June 30 at 10:18 EDT, was updated with new material at 19:12 EDT.

When Religious Freedom Clashes with Access to Care

Glenn Cohen, J.D., Holly Fernandez Lynch, J.D., M.Bioethics, and Gregory D. Curfman, M.D.

July 2, 2014 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1407965

At the tail end of this year’s Supreme Court term, religious freedom came into sharp conflict with the government’s interest in providing affordable access to health care. In a consolidated opinion inBurwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell (collectively known as Hobby Lobby) delivered on June 30, the Court sided with religious freedom, highlighting the limitations of our employment-based health insurance system.

Hobby Lobby centered on the contraceptives-coverage mandate, which derived from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandate that many employers offer insurance coverage of certain “essential” health benefits, including coverage of “preventive” services without patient copayments or deductibles. The ACA authorized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define the scope of those preventive services, a task it delegated to the Institute of Medicine, whose list included all 20 contraceptive agents approved by the Food and Drug Administration. HHS articulated various justifications for the resulting mandate, including the fact that many Americans have difficulty affording contraceptives despite their widespread use and

the goal of avoiding a disproportionate financial burden on women.

Under the regulation, churches are exempt from covering contraception for their employees, and nonprofit religious organizations may apply for an “accommodation,” which shifts to their insurance companies (or other third parties) the responsibility for providing free access. However,

HHS made no exception for for-profit, secular businesses with religious owners.

Hobby Lobby, a craft-store chain with more than 13,000 employees, is a closely held, for-profit corporation owned by a Protestant family that operates the business in accordance with its Christian principles — for example, donating a portion of proceeds to Christian missions and remaining closed on Sundays. The family does not object to providing coverage for some contraceptives, but

it challenged the mandate because it includes contraceptive methods that the family believes cause abortion by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.

The challenge in Hobby Lobby was not about the Constitution or its First Amendment. Rather, it hinged on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which was Congress’s response to a Supreme Court decision holding that

even if a law in fact burdened religion, it could stand as long as it was not intended to burden religion (was “neutral”),
applied without regard to religious beliefs or practices (was “generally applicable”), and
was rationally related to a legitimate government interest — a low bar.

RFRA applies when a federal law is deemed to “substantially” burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if it is neutral and generally applicable. Such laws may be enforced against religious objectors only when they further a compelling government interest using the least restrictive means available. This is the most demanding standard of judicial review, and few laws meet its requirements. In a 5-to-4 decision the Court found that the contraceptives-coverage mandate did not.

In its RFRA analysis, the Court had to address several key questions:

Are closely held, for-profit corporations “persons” for the purposes of RFRA protection?
Can corporations exercise religion?
Does the contraceptives-coverage mandate substantially burden religion?
Does the mandate advance a compelling government interest? And
are there less restrictive alternatives that would achieve the same result?

In a ruling in which Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority (joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas), the mandate came up short. The majority concluded that RFRA was intended to protect even for-profit corporations and that

corporations may exercise religion,
rejecting as unreasonable any definition of “person” that would include some but not all corporations.

The majority also concluded that the mandate did place a substantial burden on the companies’ religious beliefs, given the dramatic financial consequences of noncompliance (for example, Hobby Lobby would have faced a fine of $475 million per year) and

the fact that the government had extended other exemptions and accommodations in recognition of that burden.

The majority assumed that the government has a compelling interest in promoting free access to contraceptive agents, but it held that

the government had failed to advance that interest in the least restrictive way, given
the possibility of extending its existing exemptions and accommodations to for-profit corporations

Thus, the Court held that as applied to closely held, for-profit corporations with religious objections, the mandate violates RFRA. It was careful, however, to restrict the decision to the case before it, refraining from opining on the implications for other types of employers or objections to other health care services, which it cautioned must be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Nonetheless, the case may have broad practical impact, since

approximately 90% of all U.S. companies are closely held, and
“closely held” is not synonymous with “small.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a sharp dissent, in which she was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and in large part by Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer. Delivering her opinion from the bench, Justice Ginsburg underscored the burden that the majority decision would allow to be placed on women in favor of religious objectors:

“Today’s potentially sweeping decision . . . discounts the disadvantages religion-based opt outs impose on others, in particular, employees who do not share their employer’s religious beliefs.”

Hobby Lobby‘s outcome is of concern to U.S. health care professionals because

our health insurance system is still largely dependent on employers.
Employers and employees may have fundamentally different perspectives on which medical interventions are acceptable,
particularly when the employer’s fundamental mission is not to advance specific religious beliefs and
- its employees are therefore unlikely to be drawn exclusively from its own religious group.

The Court’s decision allows the beliefs of employers of various sizes and corporate forms to trump the beliefs and needs of their employees, potentially influencing the types of care that will be affordable and accessible to individuals and permitting employers to intrude on clinician–patient relationships.

The case also has important implications for efforts to achieve compromise between religious freedom and health care access. The Obama administration’s attempts to compromise on the contraceptives-coverage mandate ultimately backfired, since its efforts were used to demonstrate that

applying the mandate even to secular employers was not necessarily the only way to achieve the government’s interests.

In the future, regulators may be less willing to seek compromise lest their efforts be similarly used against them — and it is bad news for all of us if health policy can be made only through polarization and rancor rather than compromise. On the other hand, in other contraceptives-mandate cases working their way through the courts, nonprofit religious employers argue that the government’s accommodations do not go far enough in protecting their religious freedom, essentially requiring them to deputize a third party to commit what they think is a sin on their behalf.

Finally, in the wake of Hobby Lobby, we may anticipate challenges to other medical services that some religions find objectionable, such as vaccinations, infertility treatments, blood transfusions, certain psychiatric treatments, and even hospice care. Hobby Lobby‘s implications may also extend into civil rights law, with employers asking to “opt out” of laws intended to protect people from employment and housing discrimination based on religion, race, sex, national origin, or pregnancy status. Although the majority deemed these slippery-slope concerns unrealistic, the dissent expressed serious concerns.

Though the decision applies only to closely held, for-profit corporations, it sets a precedent for religious exemptions that could have sweeping implications — and reflects the Supreme Court’s great potential impact on U.S. health care. Yet the Court was applying Congress’s statute, and

Congress could, if it chose, scale back the protection offered to religious objectors — a good reason to share public reactions to the decision with our elected representatives.

BUFFER ZONES, BUBBLE ZONES, AND ABORTION CLINICS — ANOTHER WOMEN’S HEALTH CASE

In 2000, concerned about clashes between antiabortion protesters and women seeking abortions, the Massachusetts legislature established an 18-ft radius around the entrances and driveways of facilities providing abortions and specified that within that area, no person could, without consent, approach within 6 ft of another person (a so-called “bubble zone”) for the purpose of protesting, leafleting, counseling, or education. In 2007, the legislature concluded that law was not effective enough and increased its stringency, imposing a 35-ft fixed buffer zone with few exceptions. The law was challenged on free-speech grounds in a case called McCullen v. Coakley, and on June 26, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck it down as unconstitutional.

The lead opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by four other justices, noted that sidewalks and public ways hold a “special position in terms of First Amendment protection because of their historic role as sites for discussion and debate.” Although it was abortion that had motivated the statute, the Court held that the law was content- and viewpoint-neutral: it did not focus on what was said but on where it was said, and it burdened all speech, not merely disfavored speech.

On this point, the four remaining justices disagreed. Nevertheless, the Court held that the statute failed the second part of the relevant constitutional test because it was not “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.” In particular, though the Court recognized that the buffer zones furthered the state’s interests in “ensuring public safety” on streets and sidewalks and in “preserving access to adjacent healthcare facilities,” it determined that

the law problematically criminalized not only protests,
but also sidewalk counseling, which could not be done at a distance of 35 ft.
It also found that the buffer zones burdened “substantially more speech than necessary to achieve” the state’s interest

and suggested a plethora of less intrusive means the state could have used instead, some of which are used in other states.

Although the decision deals another blow to abortion rights, that blow is not as substantial as some had feared: the finding that the law was content- and viewpoint-neutral allows for the possibility that Massachusetts and other states could pass similar but narrower laws. Moreover, the Court left open the future of the floating “bubble zone” around women approaching clinics for abortions — the strategy that Massachusetts had used from 2000 to 2007 and one that the Court upheld in a Colorado case in 2000. Several justices, however, indicated a willingness to revisit that decision in future litigation.

See §§2000bb–1(a), (b) (requiring the Government to “demonstrat[e] that application of [a substantial] burden to the person . . . is the least restrictive means of furthering [a] compelling governmental interest” (emphasis added)).

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Where has reason gone?

Posted in Accountable Care Organizations, Affordable Care Act, Federal Budget Appropriations, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Health Law & Patient Safety, Healthcare costs and reimbursement, Law and Medicine Conflicts, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, Reproductive Biology & Bio Instrumentation, tagged Closely held, Definition of Corporate entity, Hobby Lobby, Individual protection, Religion, Science and belief, Supreme Court on July 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP, Wtiter and Curator

http:///pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/5/7/2014/where_has_reason_gone?

Update 8 July 2014

This will be a series of presentations on the Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby, it’s impact, and the distamce it places on Chief Justic Roberts’ decision to go with a 5-4 majority after this year achieving a direction of concensus largely undivided decisions. Both Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts could have taken a different position with a much appreciated decision, or the alternative was to send the case back to the lower court. That did not happen, and the consequences are unfolding.

Where has the reason gone?
Justice Ginsberg written dissent
The physicians’ view of Supreme Court on an issue of public health
Reason in Hobby Lobby

We are in a period of widespread instability that is bereft of comprehensibility, not just in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, but also imposing constrainsts on our constitutional government. This web sight is concerned with science and also health. Science is challenged to figure out the complexity of biology and the physical world. But it has been challenged for centuries by an uncompromizing view of how to organize a society, driven by hatred and violence, and excused by fanatical views. We have a most advanced society in the US, self selected to be the leader of nations. Yet we have a separation of powers in the presidency, two houses of Congress, and a judiciary that cannot function for the good of the people. The Congress is at war within itself , unable to carry out its obligations, and only functioning to blockade the presidential authority.

But most disconcerting is a third branch, the judiciary, with Supreme Court Justices, all of whom are political appointmnt for LIFE, and half of who have shown sufficient incompetence to wonder how they can stay in office. Perhaps, what we don’t have to keep them in line is a periodic review of performance by the American Association of Legal Constitutional Scholars. What we have is as good as it gets, but not good enough. I refrain from saying more, and proceed to the most recent ABSURD events. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Court’s conservative majority held that closely held corporations are entitled to some of the same religious rights as people. That means corporations can decide whether or not birth control is covered in the health plans of female employees. Corporations are not people, period. A boss’s religious views should not trump a physician’s medical judgement or a woman’s considered need .

The White House must move fast on expanding contraception coverage.

One proposal…would assign companies’ insurers or health plan administrators for contraceptive coverage… Another would give the administration itself a larger role.” Robert Pear and Adam Liptak in The New York Times.

A rare but potentially important dissent?

“Dissents to Supreme Court orders are rare, and a 17-page dissent to a curt, four-paragraph order is extraordinary. But Sotomayor is on to something: What the majority did in Hobby Lobby, was to allow the plaintiff also to determine what constitutes a ‘substantial burden’ upon it.” Daniel Fisher in Forbes.

Here’s what everyone has been missing in this debate.

“Ginsburg, in her scathing dissent…made an important point about women’s health that’s been almost entirely overlooked elsewhere: For many American women, the birth-control pill has nothing to do with controlling births. It’s a life-saving medicine….The decision…may affect millions of women who suffer from a variety of medical conditions. These women depend on the pill to regulate their hormones and do everything from ease pain to reduce the risk of cancer. These medical benefits have nothing to do with sex or the prevention of pregnancy….Even if these women never have sex once in their lives, they need to be on birth control.” Lucia Graves in National Journal.

“The share of privately insured women who got their birth control pills without a copayment jumped to 56 percent, from 14 percent in 2012. The law’s requirement that most health plans cover birth control as prevention, at no additional cost to women, took full effect in 2013. The average annual saving for women was $269.” Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in the Associated Press.

In Hobby Lobby, Supremes grant religious objection rights to for-profit corporations.

by Adam B In a widely-awaited-but-still-85 percent-as-sucky-as-you-feared 5-4 decision this morning,the Supreme Court of the United States has held that for-profit corporations are “persons” for purposes of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and that their religious rights were unduly burdened by the contraceptive mandate provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Because the contraceptive mandate was not the least restrictive means available for the government to provide such coverage—in the Court’s mind, the Government could just assume the costs itself, and already provided an opt-out for religious non-profit employers—the mandate on private employers violates the law. The Court was careful to limit its opinion (in theory) to these facts.

It applies only to closely held corporations, and not publicly traded ones.
It applies to the contraceptive mandate and
not religious objections to all laws in general,

believing that the “compelling interest” struck a sensible balance between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests. But … we’ll see about that. Justice Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenting Justices, refers to the decision thusly:

In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Compelling governmental interests in uniform compliance with the law, and disadvantages that religion-based opt-outs impose on others, hold no sway, the Court decides,

at least when there is a “less restrictive alternative.”

And such an alternative, the Court suggests, there always will be whenever, in lieu of tolling an enterprise claiming a religion-based exemption, the government, i.e., the general public, can pick up the tab….

Religious organizations exist to serve a community of believers.

For-profit corporations do not fit that bill.

Moreover, history is not on the Court’s side. Recognition of the discrete characters of “ecclesiastical and lay” corporations dates back to Blackstone, see 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 458 (1765), and was reiterated by this Court centuries before the enactment of the Internal Revenue Code. See Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43, 49 (1815) (describing religious corporations); Trustees of Dartmouth College, 4 Wheat., at 645 (discussing “eleemosynary” corporations, including those “created for the promotion of religion”). To reiterate,

“for-profit corporations are different from religious non-profits in that they use labor to make a profit, rather than to perpetuate [the] religious value[s] [shared by a community of believers].”

Let’s be clear, explains Justice Alito for the five majority opinion, corporations are people too (in aggregate) (for purposes of this statute): As we will show,

Congress provided protection for people like the Hahns and Greens by employing a familiar legal fiction: It included corporations within RFRA’s definition of “persons.”

It is important to keep in mind that the purpose of this fiction is to provide protection for human beings. A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of the people (including shareholders, officers, and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another. When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people. For example, extending Fourth Amendment protection to corporations protects the privacy interests of employees and others associated with the company. Protecting corporations from government seizure of their property without just compensation protects all those who have a stake in the corporations’ financial well-being. And … protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies…

This statement extends the rights beyond the statement above in that it cannot apply to a closely held corporation with only the owner having fiduciary interest

Indeed, the opinion claims, you can go back over 50 years and find the Court not questioning that a for-profit corporation’s had religious rights— in that 1961 case, a kosher supermarket seeking the right to be open on Sundays despite Massachusetts blue laws. [To which the dissent counters, “The suggestion is barely there. True, one of the five challengers to the Sunday closing law … was a corporation owned by four Orthodox Jews. The other challengers were human individuals, not artificial, law-created entities, so there was no need to determine whether the corporation could institute the litigation.”]

The Court insists that this isn’t something publicly traded companies are going to get involved in. We could use corporate law principles to suss out what their religious beliefs are: HHS contends that Congress could not have wanted RFRA to apply to for-profit corporations because it is difficult as a practical matter to ascertain the sincere “beliefs” of a corporation. HHS goes so far as to raise the specter of “divisive, polarizing proxy battles over the religious identity of large, publicly traded corporations such as IBM or General Electric.” These cases, however, do not involve publicly traded corporations, and it seems unlikely that the sort of corporate giants to which HHS refers will often assert RFRA claims. HHS has not pointed to any example of a publicly traded corporation asserting RFRA rights, and numerous practical restraints would likely prevent that from occurring. For example,

the idea that unrelated shareholders—including institutional investors with their own set of stakeholders—would agree to run a corporation under the same religious beliefs seems improbable. In any event, we have no occasion in these cases to consider RFRA’s applicability to such companies.
The companies in the cases before us are closely held corporations, each owned and controlled by members of a single family, and no one has disputed the sincerity of their religious beliefs.

HHS has also provided no evidence that the purported problem of determining the sincerity of an asserted religious belief moved Congress to exclude for-profit corporations from RFRA’s protection…. HHS and the principal dissent express concern about the possibility of disputes among the owners of corporations, but that is not a problem that arises because of RFRA or that is unique to this context. The owners of closely held corporations may—and sometimes do—disagree about the conduct of business. Even if RFRA did not exist, the owners of a company might well have a dispute relating to religion…. Courts will turn to that structure and the underlying state law in resolving disputes.

So, what about the contraceptive mandate?

Interestingly, the Court concedes for sake of argument that it serves a compelling state interest. But, still, that’s not enough. By requiring the Hahns and Greens and their companies to arrange for such coverage, the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs. If the Hahns and Greens and their companies do not yield to this demand, the economic consequences will be severe. If the companies continue to offer group health plans that do not cover the contraceptives at issue, they will be taxed $100 per day for each affected individual. For Hobby Lobby, the bill could amount to $1.3 million per day or about $475 million per year; for Conestoga, the assessment could be $90,000 per day or $33 million per year; and for Mardel, it could be $40,000 per day or about $15 million per year. These sums are surely substantial. … Are their religious beliefs loony? The Court’s not going to look into that.

The sincerity is what counts, and that creates a burden: …If I may ask—how do you measure sincerity?

How much it will spend on litigating its case!

The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the

destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage.

This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another.

Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principal dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs

that their beliefs are flawed. …
we have repeatedly refused to take such a step.

See, e.g., Smith, 494 U. S., at 887 (“Repeatedly and in many different contexts, we have warned that courts must not presume to determine . . . the plausibility of a religious claim”)

Incredible!! So, RFRA applies, there’s a burden, and the contraceptive mandate fails the test.

The least-restrictive-means standard is exceptionally demanding, and it is not satisfied here. HHS has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by the objecting parties in these cases. See §§2000bb–1(a), (b) (requiring the Government to “demonstrat[e] that application of [a substantial] burden to the person . . . is the least restrictive means of furthering [a] compelling governmental interest” (emphasis added)).

The most straightforward way of doing this would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections. This would certainly be less restrictive of the plaintiffs’ religious liberty, and HHS has not shown that this is not a viable alternative. HHS has not provided any estimate of the average cost per employee of providing access to these contraceptives, two of which, according to the FDA, are designed primarily for emergency use. Nor has HHS provided any statistics regarding the number of employees who might be affected because they work for corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel. Nor has HHS told us that it is unable to provide such statistics. It seems likely, however, that the cost of providing the forms of contraceptives at issue in these cases (if not all FDA-approved contraceptives) would be minor when compared with the overall cost of ACA.

According to one of the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent forecasts, ACA’s insurance-coverage provisions will cost the Federal Government more than $1.3 trillion through the next decade. If, as HHS tells us, providing all women with cost-free access to all FDA-approved methods of contraception is a Government interest of the highest order, it is hard to understand HHS’s argument that it cannot be required under RFRA to pay anything in order to achieve this important goal.

HHS contends that RFRA does not permit us to take this option into account because “RFRA cannot be used to require creation of entirely new programs.” But we see nothing in RFRA that supports this argument, and drawing the line between the “creation of an entirely new program” and the modification of an existing program (which RFRA surely allows) would be fraught with problems. And don’t worry, Justice Alito insists! This is a really, really narrow holding, and doesn’t create religious exemptions to good laws: HHS and the principal dissent argue that a ruling in favor of the objecting parties in these cases will

lead to a flood of religious objections regarding a wide variety of medical procedures and drugs, such as vaccinations and blood transfusions,

but HHS has made no effort to substantiate this prediction. HHS points to no evidence that insurance plans in existence prior to the enactment of ACA excluded coverage for such items. Nor has HHS provided evidence that any significant number of employers sought exemption, on religious grounds, from any of ACA’s coverage requirements other than the contraceptive mandate. …

What are the credentials for Alito and associates in the domain of medical therapies? None!

[O]ur decision in these cases is concerned solely with the contraceptive mandate.

Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them. The principal dissent raises the possibility that discrimination in hiring, for example on the basis of race, might be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction. Our decision today provides no such shield. The Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal. Justice Kennedy adds an additional concurrence to remind everyone that Justice Kennedy believes in the Court, America, and his own importance:

In our constitutional tradition, freedom means that all persons have the right to believe or strive to believe in a divine creator and a divine law. For those who choose this course, free exercise is essential in preserving their own dignity and in striving for a self-definition shaped by their religious precepts. Free exercise in this sense implicates more than just freedom of belief. It means, too, the right to express those beliefs and to establish one’s religious(or nonreligious) self-definition in the political, civic, and economic life of our larger community.

But in a complex society and an era of pervasive governmental regulation, defining the proper realm for free exercise can be difficult. … “[T]he American community is today, as it long has been, a rich mosaic of religious faiths.” Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U. S. _, _ (2014) (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 15). Among the reasons the United States is so open, so tolerant, and so free is that no person may be restricted or demeaned by government in exercising his or her religion. Yet neither may that same exercise unduly restrict other persons, such as employees, in protecting their own interests, interests the law deems compelling.

In these cases the means to reconcile those two priorities are at hand in the existing accommodation the Government has designed, identified, and used for circumstances closely parallel to those presented here. RFRA requires the Government to use this less restrictive means. Justice Ginsburg writes the principal dissent, and begins by reminding us of the importance of sexual autonomy, and the economic stakes for women in this litigation: “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 856 (1992).Congress acted on that understanding when, as part of a nationwide insurance program intended to be comprehensive, it called for coverage of preventive care responsive to women’s needs.

… The [ACA] had a large gap, however; it left out preventive services that “many women’s health advocates and medical professionals believe are critically important.” 155 Cong. Rec. 28841 (2009) (statement of Sen. Boxer). To correct this oversight, Senator Barbara Mikulski introduced the Women’s Health Amendment, which added to the ACA’s minimum coverage requirements a new category of preventive services specific to women’s health…Women paid significantly more than men for preventive care, the amendment’s proponents noted; in fact, cost barriers operated to block many women from obtaining needed care at all. See, e.g., id., at 29070 (statement of Sen. Feinstein) (“Women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men.”); id., at 29302 (statement of Sen. Mikulski) (“copayments are [often] so high that [women] avoid getting [preventive and screening services] in the first place”). And increased access to contraceptive services, the sponsors comprehended, would yield important public health gains. See, e.g., id., at 29768 (statement of Sen. Durbin) (“This bill will expand health insurance coverage to the vast majority of [the 17 million women of reproductive age in the United States who are uninsured] . . . . This expanded access will reduce unintended pregnancies.”). And the dissenters deride as unfounded the Court’s new recognition of religious rights for for-profit corporations: Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA.

George Takei’s blistering response to #HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corp impose Sharia Law?

byVyan THU JUL 03, 2014 AT 09:12 AM PDT “The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion,” Takei wrote. (O)ne wonders,” he said, “whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.” “Hobby Lobby is not a church. It’s a business — and a big one at that,” he continued. “Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Just as Justice Ginsberg and Mr Takei have suggested, the Hyper-Religious are already attempting to capitalize on the SCOTUS new granting of the rights of an individual to a corporate entity. In this decision the SCOTUS Majority opinion claimed that they were not granting the equal legitimacy of such follow on requests, but they’ve kicked open the door. Takei – bless his soul – also pointed out the basic hypocrisy of Hobby Lobby’s business practices in regards to religion. Noting that… …Hobby Lobby has invested in multiple companies that manufacture abortion drugs and birth control. The company receives most of its merchandise from China, a country where overpopulation has led to mandatory abortions and sterilizations for women who try to have more than one child.

What the battle over birth control is really about

byteacherken in a 2012 piece at Alternet by Sara Robinson. Conservative bishops and Congressmen are fighting a rear-guard action against one of the most revolutionary changes in human history. Robinson suggests 500 years from now looking back, the three great achievements of the 20th Century are likely to be the invention of the integrated circuit (without which the internet does not exist), the Moon landing (which she thinks will carry the same impact as Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe), and the mass availability of nearly 100% effective contraception. Far from being a mere 500-year event, we may have to go back to the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire to find something that’s so completely disruptive to the way humans have lived for the entire duration of our remembered history.

Free Birth Control is Emerging Standard for Women

Mon, 07/07/2014 – 8:47am

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half of privately insured women are getting free birth control under President Barack Obama’s health law, a major coverage shift that’s likely to advance. This week the Supreme Court allowed some employers with religious scruples to opt out, but most companies appear to be going in the opposite direction. Recent data from the IMS Institute document a sharp change during 2013. The share of privately insured women who got their birth control pills without a copayment jumped to 56 percent, from 14 percent in 2012. The law’s requirement that most health plans cover birth control as prevention, at no additional cost to women, took full effect in 2013. The average annual saving for women was $269. “It’s a big number,” said institute director Michael Kleinrock. The institute is the research arm of IMS Health, a Connecticut-based technology company that uses pharmacy records to track prescription drug sales. The core of Obama’s law — taxpayer-subsidized coverage for the uninsured — benefits a relatively small share of Americans. But free preventive care— from flu shots to colonoscopies —is a dividend of sorts for the majority with employer coverage. Expanded preventive coverage hasn’t gotten as much attention as another bonus for the already insured: the provision that allows young adults to remain on their parents’ policy until they turn 26. That may start to change with all the discussion of birth control. Business groups and employee benefits consultants say they see little chance that employers will roll back contraceptive coverage as a result of the Supreme Court ruling. The court carved out a space for “closely held” companies whose owners object on religious grounds. Most companies don’t fit that niche.