WASHINGTON (AP) — A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled
Monday that some companies with religious objections can avoid the
contraceptives requirement in President Barack Obama’s health care
overhaul, the first time the high court has declared that businesses can
hold religious views under federal law.
The justices’ 5-4
decision, splitting conservatives and liberals, means the Obama
administration must search for a different way of providing free
contraception to women who are covered under the health insurance plans
of objecting companies.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority
opinion, over a dissent from the four liberal justices, that forcing
companies to pay for methods of women’s contraception to which they
object violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He said the
ruling is limited and there are ways for the administration to ensure
women get the birth control they want.
But White House press
secretary Josh Earnest said the decision creates health risks for women,
and he said Congress should take action to make sure they get coverage.
"President
Obama believes that women should make personal health care decisions
for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them," Earnest
said. "Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of the women who are
employed by these companies."
Contraception is among a range of
preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the
health care law that Obama signed in 2010. Nearly 30 million women
receive birth control as a result of the health law, the government has
said.
Benefits experts say they expect little impact from the
ruling because employers use health benefits to recruit and retain
workers. But one constitutional law scholar, Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva
University, cautioned that more than 80 percent of U.S. corporations are
closely held and she said they could "now be able to discriminate
against their employees."
Two years ago, Chief Justice John
Roberts cast the pivotal Supreme Court vote that saved the law in the
midst of Obama’s campaign for re-election. On Monday, Roberts sided with
the four justices who would have struck down the law in its entirety,
holding in favor of the religious rights of closely held corporations,
like the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby chain of arts-and-craft stores that
challenged the contraceptives provision.
Hobby Lobby is among
roughly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives. Some,
like the two 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.
But Monday’s ruling would apply more broadly to other
companies that do not want to pay for any of the 20 birth control
methods and devices that have been approved by federal regulators.
Alito
said the decision is limited to contraceptives. "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,"
he said.
He suggested two ways the administration could deal with
the birth control issue. The government 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, creating a
buffer, their insurer or a third-party administrator takes on the
responsibility of paying for the birth control. The employer does not
have to arrange the coverage or pay for it. Insurers get reimbursed by
the government through credits against fees owed under other provisions
of the health care law.
That accommodation is the subject of
separate legal challenges, and the court said Monday that 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
say 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.
Leaders of women’s rights groups blasted the decision by
"five male justices," in the words of Cecile Richards, president of the
Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
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.
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 inject 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.
The company has more than 15,000 full-time
employees in more than 600 crafts stores in 41 states. Hobby Lobby is
owned by the family of David Green, evangelical Christians who also own
Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain.
The other company is
Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pennsylvania, owned by a
Mennonite family and employing 950 people in making wood cabinets.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Jessica Gresko and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this
report.