Pennsylvania v. President of the United States

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that women’s health insurance cover preventive health care. Health Resources and Services Administration guidelines indicate that preventative health care includes contraceptive care. Nonprofit religious entity employers could invoke "the Accommodation," which permits employers to send self-certification forms to their insurance issuers to exclude contraceptive coverage from the group health plan while providing payments for contraceptive services for plan participants and beneficiaries, separate from the group health plan, without the imposition of cost sharing, premium, fee, or other charge on plan participants or beneficiaries or on the eligible organization or its plan.Following Supreme Court decisions concerning ACA, the Accommodation was extended to for-profit entities that are not publicly traded, are majority-owned by a relatively small number of individuals, and that object to providing contraceptive coverage based on the owners’ religious beliefs. The district court entered a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the rule’s enforcement nationwide.The Third Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the agencies did not follow the Administrative Procedures Act and that the regulations are not authorized under the ACA or required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Sates will face unredressable financial consequences from subsidizing contraceptive services, providing funds for medical care associated with unintended pregnancies, and absorbing medical expenses arising from decreased use of contraceptives for other health conditions. The current Accommodation does not substantially burden employers’ religious exercise and its extension is not necessary to protect a legally-cognizable interest. The public interest favors minimizing harm to third-parties by ensuring that women who may lose ACA-guaranteed contraceptive coverage. View "Pennsylvania v. President of the United States" on Justia Law