A unanimous Supreme Court on Monday said it won’t decide a dispute over Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate and religious rights, telling lower courts and the parties involved to find a compromise solution.
In an unsigned five-page opinion in the Zubik v. Burwell case, the Court reached the conclusion that “in light of the positions asserted by the parties in their supplemental briefs, the Court vacates the judgments below and remands to the respective United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Tenth, and D. C. Circuits.”
Link: Read The Opinion
“The parties on remand should be afforded an opportunity to arrive at an approach going forward that accommodates petitioners’ religious exercise while at the same time ensuring that women covered by petitioners’ health plans ‘receive full and equal health coverage, including contraceptive coverage,’” the statement said.
The Justices took the unusual step on March 29 of ordering both sides of the case to “submit supplemental briefs that address whether and how contraceptive coverage may be obtained by petitioners employees through petitioners insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.”
The Court also made clear that it didn’t reach a conclusion about the case’s merits. “In particular, the Court does not decide whether petitioners’ religious exercise has been substantially burdened, whether the Government has a compelling interest, or whether the current regulations are the least restrictive means of serving that interest.”
The Court in November consolidated seven cases challenging Obamacare’s birth-control mandate into one: Zubik v. Burwell. The current legal challenge was the fourth to be accepted by the Court since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, involves religious-sponsored non-profit corporations.
These institutions objected on moral grounds to an Obamacare provision that allows their employees to obtain contraceptive coverage through their health insurance, even if those contraceptive products are provided by insurance companies and the government, instead of the institutions.
The groups argued that even indirect participation in such a plan is offensive, and they want to be included in a broader Obamacare exception extended to churches, synagogues and worship-based employers.
The federal government believed that religiously oriented non-profit institutions such as hospitals and universities have numerous employees who don’t share the beliefs of religious groups that sponsor the non-profits, and these workers would be harmed by the exclusions.
For now, the case heads to the lower federal court system and a possible compromise.
