Written by Don Byrd
Just a week after deciding to take up religious liberty challenges to the contraception coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear a broad challenge on religious liberty (and other) grounds to the employer mandate in the law. The move leaves the 4th Circuit’s ruling in place holding that the employer mandate to provide health care coverage does not violate the religious liberty of plaintiff Liberty University.
Not to be confused with the more limited contraception challenges that have divided courts across the country for the last year, suits like Liberty University’s attacking the entire employer mandate have not found any judicial takers. The 4th Circuit unanimously rejected their religious liberty arguments earlier this year, summing up this way.
Plaintiffs present no plausible claim that the Act substantially burdens their free exercise of religion, by forcing them to facilitate or support abortion or otherwise. The Act specifically provides individuals the option to purchase a plan that covers no abortion services except those for cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the mother would be endangered. The Act also does nothing to prevent employers from providing such a plan. Furthermore, the Act allows an individual to obtain, and an employer to offer, a plan that covers no abortion services at all, not even excepted services. Given that the mandates themselves impose no substantial burden, the option of paying a tax to avoid the mandates’ requirements certainly imposes no substantial burden.
We will find out in the next year the fate of the contraception mandate for those employers with religious objections who aren’t already exempt from the requirement. As for the opening up the entire employer mandate again, an enormous plank of the health care law, on religious liberty grounds? The U.S. Supreme Court apparently wanted no part of that.
