Patty

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision-contraception-mandate-108429.html
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that employers with religious objections can opt out of providing contraception coverage under Obamacare.

The ruling deals directly with only a small provision of Obamacare and will not take down the entire law but it amounts to a huge black eye for Obamacare and its backers. The justices have given Obamacare opponents their most significant political victory against the health care law, reinforcing their argument that the law and President Barack Obama are encroaching on Americans’ freedoms............


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision-contraception-mandate-108429.html#ixzz368YrgtfK

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

What I find ridiculous about this whole thing is that 95% of Catholic women use contraception! It's only right-wing extremist, ultra-religious males who objected to contraception being included in the ACA. Now they will have to pay for contraception for their wives out of pocket.

Comment Loc: California

Patty, We want to look at the vote of the court. We want to know who on the court was in favor of taking away our freedoms. In lookin at this we can determine who the liberal progressive communists are.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Now will Obama and his backers try to skirt the law?

Patty

You don't seem to know what this case is about.
It is about the morning after pill and abortion.

Patty

Yep. It just came out and couldn't find that reported yet.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

It's all about choice. ACA (ObamaCare) forces everyone to pay for it. Think of something you don't use, now think about being forced to pay for it, would you be happy?

Or if your car uses regular, fill it with high test.

DotTav Loc: VA, USA

Great, hope to see the courts do more of this.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

It's not just ultra-religious males that are paying for other people's sex.

Many people of all religions and sexes think it's not my responsibility to pay for another person's contraception.

And, BTW, not all women use contraception. Why should they have to subsidies another person's sex?

This highlights one of the biggest reason Obamacare is such a failure for the American people. The contraception mandate was a political decision, not a medical decision. It was designed to make low-information voters think that Obama cares.

Patty

we delegated only a very few powers to the federal government.

Accordingly, Congress has strictly limited legislative powers over the Country at large. These powers are listed primarily at Art. I, §8, clauses 3-16, and are restricted to war, international commerce & relations; and domestically, the creation of an uniform commercial system: weights & measures, patents & copyrights, a monetary system based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & roads. Several Amendments delegate to Congress some power over civil rights.

These enumerated powers are the only areas where the federal government has lawful authority over The States and The People in The States. In all other matters [except those listed at Art. I, §10]the States and The People retain supremacy, independence, and sovereignty. Go here for a complete list of all of Congress’ Enumerated Powers.

Obamacare is altogether unconstitutional because it is outside the scope of the legislative powers We granted to Congress. Nothing in Our Constitution authorizes the federal government to control our medical care (or to exercise the other fearsome powers in the Act).

I challenge those five (5) lawless judges on the supreme Court [Roberts, Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, & Breyer], all other totalitarians, liberals, and parasites who support obamacare, to point to that clause of The Constitution where We delegated to the federal government power to control our medical care.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

and that is the whole point of the fight against the mandate. Birth control pills, condoms, Viagra and any other medication that is not medically necessary should be an out of pocket expense for those who want to use them, not paid for by the general population. No one was against the usage of these devices and / or medications just the requirement that the taxpayers should be required to pay for them. Birth control clinics have made available to a number of women various pills at a reduced price, so they are affordable. I bet that almost all of the people who are demanding other people pay for their birth control devices could find the money to pay for them on their own perhaps by taking their own homemade lunches to work, stopping smoking, or drinking, or perhaps shopping in consignment shops once in a while to pay for their own birth control devices. So what if you have to pay for your wife's pills, why shouldn't you?

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

Oh, cmon. It's not about abortion...unless one considers an egg fertilized in the last 24 hours and not yet implanted abortion. Well...I guess the nutjobs do consider that abortion, so I'll cede your point...for the nutjobs.

By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that some corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women.

The justices' 5-4 decision is the first time that the high court has ruled that profit-seeking businesses can hold religious views under federal law. And it means the Obama administration must search for a different way of providing free contraception to women who are covered under objecting companies' health insurance plans.

Contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the health care law that President Barack Obama signed in 2010 and the Supreme Court upheld two years later.

Two years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts cast the pivotal vote that saved the health care law in the midst of Obama's campaign for re-election. On Monday, dealing with a small sliver of the law, Roberts sided with the four justices who would have struck down the law in its entirety.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion. The court's four liberal justices dissented.

The court stressed that its ruling applies only to corporations that are under the control of just a few people in which there is no essential difference between the business and its owners, like the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby chain of arts-and-craft stores that challenged the provision.

Alito also said the decision is limited to contraceptives under the health care law. "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," Alito said.

He suggested two ways the administration could ensure women get the contraception they want. It could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said.

Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations. Those groups can tell the government that providing the coverage violates their religious beliefs. At that point, the groups' insurers or a third-party administrator takes on the responsibility of paying for the birth control.

The accommodation is the subject of separate legal challenges, but the court said Monday that the profit-seeking companies could not assert religious claims in such a situation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was part of the majority, also wrote separately to emphasize that the administration can solve its problem easily. "The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it," Kennedy said. He said that arrangement "does not impinge on the plaintiffs' religious beliefs."

Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the requirement to offer birth control.

In a dissent she read aloud from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision "potentially sweeping" because it minimizes the government's interest in uniform compliance with laws affecting the workplace. "And it discounts the disadvantages religion-based opt outs impose on others, in particular, employees who do not share their employer's religious beliefs," Ginsburg said.

The administration said a victory for the companies would prevent women who work for them from making decisions about birth control based on what's best for their health, not whether they can afford it. The government's supporters pointed to research showing that nearly one-third of women would change their contraceptive if cost were not an issue; a very effective means of birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.

The contraceptives at issue before the court were the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, and two IUDs.

Nearly 50 businesses have sued over covering contraceptives. Some, like those involved in the Supreme Court case, are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized. Other companies object to paying for any form of birth control.

There are separate lawsuits challenging the contraception provision from religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges and charities.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 85 percent of large American employers already had offered such coverage before the health care law required it.

Most working women will probably see no impact from the ruling, corporate health benefits consultants expect. Publicly traded companies are unlikely to drag religion into their employee benefit plans, said Mark Holloway, director of compliance services at the Lockton Companies, an insurance broker that serves medium-sized and growing employers.

"Most employers view health insurance as a tool to attract and retain employees," said Holloway. "Women employees want access to contraceptive coverage and most employers don't have a problem providing that coverage. It is typically not a high-cost item."

It is unclear how many women potentially are affected by the high court ruling. Hobby Lobby is by far the largest employer of any company that has gone to court to fight the birth control provision.

Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby has more than 15,000 full-time employees in more than 600 crafts stores in 41 states. The Greens are evangelical Christians who also own Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain.

The other company is Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pa., owned by a Mennonite family and employing 950 people in making wood cabinets.

---

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

Of course it's about abortion.... And more importantly abortion politics.

You didn't see mandated prostate exams did you?

Hartbreaker

People can do what they want but they should not be forced to pay for what someone else wants if they do not agree with it. And the main grievance they had was not the birth control but the abortion pill that they did not want to pay for.

Either way, quit trying to rephrase the question just because you did not like the answer.

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

It's not an issue for me, but I support contraception being included in health insurance. Why make it so difficult for those who cannot afford to pay for it out of pocket? We don't need unwanted children born to parents who can't afford them to be adding to the welfare rolls or who can't receive proper parenting to become productive members of society. Just being realistic.

I don't see why you are lumping Viagra in with birth control. They're two separate issues. Viagra is a medication to treat a physical dysfunction, and it is covered under the ACA. I don't know of anyone who has voiced an objection to it being so. Fertility treatment for both men and women are covered.