As I wrote last week, I waited with bated breath over the weekend for the last of the Supreme Court decisions for the 2013-14 term to be issued. And the dearth of air was worth the wait.
In a decision that many have been waiting for since last Fall, the Supreme Court today finally dealt a blow to Obamacare while giving a boost to freedom for small business. To be sure, the decision in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case is not a complete victory, but it takes a sizable chink out of the Obamacare armor.
The facts of the Hobby Lobby case are relatively well known to anyone with a pulse and who has paid even a modicum of attention for the last two years. To recap, one of the provisions of Obamacare is that nearly all group health plans must cover a detailed list of “essential health benefits.” Most businesses do not have any problem with nine of the ten categories on the list. However, the category of “women’s preventive services” contains a grouping of services that includes contraception, sterilization, and any drug approved by the FDA to prevent pregnancy. Many religious nonprofit organizations object to some or all three of these items, and they have been given a two options that the government says must suffice. Law suits have been filed in those cases as well, and they were not resolved by today’s ruling.
But religious organizations are not the only employers who have objected to that portion of the list of women’s preventive services. At stake in the Hobby Lobby case was the right of for-profit business owners who have a religious objection to contraceptives and related products to be able to bar them from being included in the coverage that the employer pays for on behalf of its employees. Under Obamacare, employers with 50 or more employees will soon be required to offer affordable coverage to their employees. If the employer provides coverage that does not cover one or more of the objectionable services, the employer is subject to a $100 per day per employee fine. It doesn’t take a mathematician to quickly calculate that 50 x $100 x 365 is a huge sum. (There are some nuances to these calculations, but the resulting fine would still be enough to shut down almost any profitable business.) The other option that an employer has is to forego providing health insurance to its employees all together, which would result in a $2000 per employee (minus the first 30 employees) per year (prorated on a monthly basis). Although this second option results in fines that are not nearly as hefty as the first, and could even cost the employer less than providing coverage to its employees, many employers still objected because their religious convictions and moral compass require them to provide health coverage as a benefit to their employees. So the choice is really between fines — a huge fine or a little less of a fine. And this is the substance of the debate.
The majority in the SCOTUS decision today was made up of the four conservative justices who dissented in the Obamacare Constitutional challenge in 2012, along with Chief Justice Roberts, who you will remember authored the majority opinion upholding the Constitutionality of the Obamacare tax in 2012 while siding with the four liberal justices.
I couldn’t help this morning but to wish that I could be a fly on the wall of the home of Sandra Fluke. Remember her? How could you forget. She was the Georgetown chick “reproductive tights activist” who several years ago came into the limelight by testifying before a Congressional committee on the dire need for college women to have taxpayer funded birth control. She was described as a slut by Rush Limbaugh for wanting taxpayers to fund her sexual exploits, which cost her thousands of dollars YEARS, and liberal Hollywood elites came to her defense. Fluke has been Tweeting all morning (and all day yesterday). Apparently she follows the Michelle Obama belief that hashtagging will stop bullets. Here are some of her tweets, with a screen capture at 2:20 p.m. eastern time on the day of the ruling.
If it sounds like Fluke is cheerleading, that’s because she is — for herself. She is a candidate for California Senate District 26. You will never guess where SD 26 is located in California. Shock of shocks, it is Los Angeles!
Can’t you see the likes of Jeanine Garofalo and thousands of other liberal Hollywood elites’ heads exploding over the Hobby Lobby decision? And I can only imagine the flood of money pouring into the coffers of NARAL and Sandra Fluke today. Not to be outdone are other politicians who posted on Twitter under the hashtag #NotMyBossBusiness throughout the day today.
And then there are some other just plain idiotic tweets from irrelevant nobodies trying to be relevant.
To the latter two ladies I can say, I am sure Hobby Lobby wants to stay as far away from your uteri (and every other part of your anatomies) as possible.
I see no need to gloat over this small victory. It does have potential to grow. There are still dozens of cases of religious organizations waiting to be decided that could have even more of an impact for employer rights and true religious freedom. I will be waiting for these to get their day in Court. But I won’t be holding my breath this time.
Leave a Reply