Tag Archives: Topic: Insurance

Today, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed an unopposed motion for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requesting that the court enjoin the Obama administration from enforcing the HHS “contraception” mandate against Johnson Welded Products, Inc.

Becket Fund: We are encouraged by today’s hearing before the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and counsel on the case. “Being heard before all eight judges – rather than the typical three-judge panel – signifies the importance of the case and the arguments being made. We stand firm in our belief that Hobby Lobby should have the right to opt out of a provision that infringes on their religious beliefs, and we look forward to a favorable outcome.”

Denver Post: Federal judges peppered lawyers for the federal government and Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. with questions Thursday as the two squared off over the corporation’s challenge to a part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

AP: But some unions leaders have grown frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the new law – problems that they say could jeopardize the health benefits offered to millions of their members.

Ed Whelan at National Review: There are two good reasons why the DOJ attorney’s argument that vindicating the RFRA rights of the business owners would violate the Establishment Clause was an “unexpected twist.” First, DOJ never made that argument in either of its Seventh Circuit briefs in the two cases. Second, there is good reason that it didn’t, for the argument is inane.

Ben Kesling And Louise Radnofsky at Wall Street Journal (access via Google): One of the cases before the Seventh Circuit was brought by K&L Contractors Inc. and its owners, who argued that the general contractor’s corporate mission mirrors that of its directors and majority owners. Cyril and Jane Korte, who own the company, are Roman Catholics. “A company is an extension” of its owners’ beliefs, said Edward White, K&L’s lawyer

LifeSiteNews: “All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences,” said Gregory S. Baylor, ADF senior counsel. “That’s no different for Geneva College, a Christian-run college that simply wants to abide by the very faith it espouses and teaches. “The court has done the right thing in allowing Geneva College to remain in this lawsuit together with Seneca Hardwood Lumber Co. to ensure that the government doesn’t punish people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.”

Religion Clause Blog: The second case argued yesterday was Grote v. Sebelius. (Audio of the full oral argument.) In the case an Indiana federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to a for-profit business that manufactures vehicle safety systems and its Catholic owners who claim that their religious liberty rights are infringed by the mandate.

AP: In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

Washington Post: By the government’s own estimate, that means 100 million Americans might not have contraceptive coverage, said Matt Bowman, an Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer representing the Grotes in one of the two cases heard Wednesday. That could undercut the government’s argument that the need to carry out the mandate is so compelling it trumps the couple’s religious beliefs.

FRC Washington Update: Today, Grote, the family-owned auto lighting company, pled its case before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, represented by our good friends at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Of the 60-plus lawsuits filed, Grote was one of first for-profit companies to challenge the constitutionality of the mandate. With almost 500 full-time employees, the owners of Grote are fighting for the ability to operate their business in accordance with their Catholic faith–a cause Hobby Lobby certainly understands.

CNSNews at St. Louis Review: “This is the court directly under the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is helping to represent the Grote family in their suit. “So its decision on this religious freedom issue will be a precursor to whether (the health care act) can be used against religious freedom across the country.” Alliance Defending Freedom, until recently known as the Alliance Defense Fund, is a Christian legal organization founded in 1994 that advocates for the religious liberty of Americans and people around the world. According to Bowman, it is currently involved in 25 lawsuits that seek to overturn the HHS mandate.

Chicago Tribune: Grote Industries, a Catholic-owned manufacturer of vehicle safety and lighting systems in Madison, Ind., made similar arguments before the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday, adding that the distinction between a company and its owner or controlling shareholders exists for “some purposes, but not moral purposes.” “No doubt here the Grote family is being forced to choose,” lawyer Matthew Bowman argued. If they choose to disobey the mandate, they “forfeit the benefits of doing business at all according to their morality.” | Hat tip: How Appealing

Barry Lynn at Washington Post: At the behest of the Catholic bishops and their fundamentalist Christian allies, far-right legal groups have filed a slew of cases insisting that secular corporations and other employers have a right according to the principle of religious freedom to deny contraceptive coverage to the men and women who work for them. Among those waging this crusade are the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, TV evangelist Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization founded by radio and TV preachers.

Politico: Obamacare’s birth control mandate will go before four different appeals courts over the next three weeks as private businesses that object to the policy on religious liberty grounds bring a barrage of lawsuits that opponents hope to get before the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as this fall.

ACLU Blog: Nearly 60 lawsuits have been filed across the country challenging the federal rule that employers include contraception in the insurance they provide employees. Four courts of appeals are now poised to hear arguments in these cases, and one of these many cases is likely headed to the Supreme Court.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman will be available for media interviews Wednesday immediately following his oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit on behalf of an Indiana-based job provider challenging the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate.

National Review: Sam Kazman and Michael Carvin have a great Forbes op-ed about their new Obamacare lawsuit, which could invalidate key portions of the law in the 33 states that did not set-up state-based health-insurance exchanges. Essentially, the lawsuit alleges that the IRS illegally rewrote the Affordable Care Act so that both the employer mandate and accompanying government subsidies applied in the 33 states that lack their own health-insurance exchanges . . . You can read the complaint here.

The Hill: Only two Democrats sided with Republicans in the party-line 229-195 vote — Jim Matheson (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.). All Republicans voted in favor of repeal.

PilotOnline.com: A bill banning private insurers from offering abortion coverage through future online marketplaces has cleared the North Carolina House.

Jen Kuznicki at CNSNews: Byron York of the Washington Examiner wrote yesterday that the IRS scandal could lead to fears about the agency’s role in enforcing Obamacare: The IRS will also decide who is, and who is not, eligible for Obamacare’s subsidies. The law authorizes the IRS to share confidential taxpayer information with the Department of Health and Human Services for the purpose of determining those subsidies.”

Politico: Liberty University’s challenge to the health reform law will go back before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., on Thursday, with the school focused on getting Obamacare back before the Supreme Court. Liberty’s lawsuit is the most wide ranging of the outstanding legal challenges to the health law, hitting everything from contraceptive coverage to the employer mandate.

National Religious Broadcasters Email (links to Alliance Defending Freedom press release): At the government’s own request, a federal appellate court has dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped the President from enforcing his abortion pill mandate against Tyndale House Publishers.

Matt Bowman on the Vince Coakley Show to discuss: Obama admin. surrenders in abortion pill mandate case. | MP3 audio 14:01 mins

Simon Lazarus at the New Republic: But the bottom-line is not hard to grasp: If the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, and all five members of the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc buy Carvin’s rationale, the result would, in rejectionist states, subvert the ACA’s central purpose and stiff the very population the law was enacted to benefit.

Pilot Catholic News: “We believe the government essentially conceded that its anti-religious legal position cannot succeed in court under scrutiny,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Tyndale in court. [more]

Kevin Theriot on the George Rice Show to discuss this: Obama admin. surrenders in abortion pill mandate case. | MP3 audio 8 mins

Matt Bowman appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to provide an update. | MP3 audio 5:13 mins

The New American: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court.”

Womenenews via Reuters: On May 22, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit center based in Scottsdale, Ariz., is hoping that the 7th Court of Appeals in Chicago will issue an injunction so its client, Grote Industries, won’t be subjected to fines for not providing the contraceptive coverage required by law since Jan. 1. (newly added to Reuters)

GoErie.com (AP): “All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences,” Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement praising the ruling. Allowing the lawsuit to go forward will “ensure that the government doesn’t punish people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.

WTAE.com: “All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences,” Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement praising the ruling. Allowing the lawsuit to go forward will “ensure that the government doesn’t punish people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.”

Ed Whelan at NRO: The Obama administration’s argument can’t withstand scrutiny. For starters, RFRA itself makes no distinction between “for-profit, secular companies” and “non-profit, religious organizations.”

Times Online: The lawsuit filed last year by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Geneva was dismissed. That’s because a judge agreed with the Justice Department that the school wasn’t suffering immediate harm because federal officials were working to exempt such institutions from the law.

The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and devices, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties. Currently, the administration is losing in court nationwide with 19 out of 25 court rulings going against the mandate.

CNSNews: All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences,” said Gregory S. Baylor, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Geneva. “The court has done the right thing in allowing Geneva College to remain in this lawsuit…to ensure that the government doesn’t punish people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.”

Womensenews.org: “Nonprofit centers like ours that depend on donations are representing these small businesses pro bono because in addition to the fines, the cost of lawyers, travel and other expenses in pursuing these cases would wipe out the assets that took generations for the owners of these small businesses to accumulate,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, in a phone interview. His group has 44 in-house attorneys and more than 2,400 volunteer attorneys.

All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences. That’s no different for Geneva College, a Christian-run college that simply wants to abide by the very faith it espouses and teaches. T

CNA at DFW Catholic: Matthew Bowman, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the publisher, told CNA that the move indicates “that the government knows it is taking an extremist view against religious freedom, and it is afraid to defend that in court.”

LifeNews: The lawsuit was brought on behalf four brothers, Terrence, John, James and Christopher Nagle and their family-owned business, M&N Plastics, Inc. The case has been assigned to Federal District Judge Victoria A. Roberts.

Bob Smietana of The Tennessean at the ShrevePort Times: The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal council for Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that represents Tyndale.

CNBC: Get ready for the Internal Revenue Service to play a dominant role in health care. When Obamacare takes full effect next year, the agency will enforce most of the laws involved in the reform—even deciding who gets included in the health-care mandate.

MySanAntonio.com: The lawsuit says that the Affordable Care Act was held to be a tax for purposes of the U.S. Constitution, but that it was enacted in violation of a constitutional provision that requires revenue-raising bills to originate in the U.S. House . . . Hotze’s lawsuit also says the federal law violates the Fifth Amendment “by requiring Plaintiffs to transfer their wealth directly to others without a ‘public use,’” and that it “violates federalism by compelling a massive transfer in wealth away from Texans without complying with constitutional requirements.

Ed Whelan at NRO: Back in 2011 when I was the first to highlight the extraordinary position against religious liberty that the Obama administration adopted in the Hosanna-Tabor case, I elicited a tizzy on the Left when I raised the possibility that the administration’s hostility to the ministerial exception to federal antidiscrimination laws was part and parcel of a broader ideological agenda that would have gay causes trump religious liberty. The particular case of Hosanna-Tabor had nothing to do with issues of homosexuality, the critics observed, so they claimed not to see the connection.

Lee Hieb at WND: The big picture is: This is a three-step shell game to bring about the death of private practice medicine in America. Here is how it will work.

Warren Richey of Christian Science Monitor at MinnPost: Matt Bowman, lead counsel for Tyndale House, claimed victory on Monday when word of the court’s action circulated. “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” he said in a statement. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.”

Michael Foust of BP on Christian Examiner: The legal group Alliance Defending Freedom says the government’s desire to withdraw its own appeal is a good sign for religious liberty. ADF is representing Tyndale. “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said ADF senior legal counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court.”

One News Now: The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds to argue that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer,” says Bowman. “For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous – and now the Obama administration had to retreat in court.”

Baptist Press on Patheos: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said ADF senior legal counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court.”

Christian Post: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” Bowman said. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court.”

Examiner.com: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.”

Breitbart: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom Matt Bowman told LifeSiteNews. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.”

Christian Science Monitor: Matt Bowman, lead counsel for Tyndale House, claimed victory on Monday when word of the court’s action circulated. “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” he said in a statement. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.” Mr. Bowman, a lawyer with the conservative public interest group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the administration’s move was a “retreat” in court. “We will continue to argue that the administration cannot disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom for all family business owners and must offer a comprehensive exemption to the mandate,” he said.

Star Tribune: Legalizing same-sex marriage will eventually cost the state about $678,000 a year, a new report has found. The new wrinkle will send a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage to another committee test in the Minnesota House on Monday. The measure could then go to the House floor in coming days.

t the government’s own request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped the president from enforcing his abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case.

Volokh Conspiracy: Last week, several small business owners and individuals filed suit challenging the legality of an IRS rule purporting to authorize tax credits for the purchase of qualifying health insurance policies in federal exchanges.

Deseret News (5/3): Faith plays a role in the lives of believers no matter what they are doing,” said attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Hercules. “It’s not possible to declare areas of life, like business or education or health care, as areas where religion is banished by the government.”

WorldNetDaily: Apparently, ADF said, Obama is nervous “about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption to the mandate.” “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court. “We will continue to argue that the administration cannot disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom for all family business owners and must offer a comprehensive exemption to the mandate,” Bowman added.

Life News: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and allied attorneys are also litigating nine other lawsuits against the mandate. The lawsuits represent a large cross-section of Protestants and Catholics who object to the mandate. More than 100 lawsuits have been filed in total.The court’s order was the third nationwide against the mandate and the second obtained by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys.

AZ Republic: The move is a response to lobbying from Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, who says Medicaid expansion would subsidize abortions — a claim that puts in a political vise anti-abortion GOP lawmakers who back the governor’s proposal . . . Herrod first raised the abortion issue in late March in a letter to Brewer, using an opinion from a Christian legal-defense organization to argue that the draft Medicaid legislation should be amended to disqualify the non-profit women’s health provider Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from receiving public money.

Rasmussen: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters think free market competition would do more to reduce health care costs than more government regulation.

AFLC: Late yesterday, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s HHS “contraception” mandate.  The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Johnson Welded Products, Inc. (“JWP”), a family owned and operated company in Ohio, and its President and principal owner, Ms. Lilli Johnson, a Catholic, who opposes the HHS mandate based on her sincerely-held religious beliefs.

Americans for Tax Reform: sked about Senator Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) recent “train wreck” comments, President Obama today said, “A huge chunk of it [Obamacare] has already been implemented.” Unmentioned was the wave of destructive Obamacare tax increases that will begin to hit Americans during the next tax filing season and beyond . . .

LIfeNews: The American Center for Law & Justice has filed its opening brief in Gilardi v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, an appeal pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Rutland Herald: Leaders in the medical and LGBT communities are celebrating a new health bulletin they say will require insurance companies to cover “medically necessary services” for transgender Vermonters — a mandate that will include gender-reassignment surgery.

The HIll: House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare. Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act’s mandate to buy health insurance.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “This is a small family business. Many of the employees are part of the family,” said Matt Bowman, attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based firm representing Seneca. “Yet the government is forcing them to violate their religious beliefs [as] a price of doing business in America.”

R.R. Reno of First Things at Imprimis (Hillsdale College): RELIGIOUS LIBERTY is being redefined in America, or at least many would like it to be. Our secular establishment wants to reduce the autonomy of religious institutions and limit the influence of faith in the public square. The reason is not hard to grasp. In America, “religion” largely means Christianity, and today our secular culture views orthodox Christian churches as troublesome, retrograde, and reactionary forces. They’re seen as anti-science, anti-gay, and anti-women—which is to say anti-progress as the Left defines progress.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed its final brief in Liberty University v. Geithner before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals hears our case against ObamaCare on May 16. Liberty Counsel represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case

Life Site News: Bowman, the senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said: “This is a family that provides generous benefits in their business and they want to be free to live according to their faith, but this Obamacare mandate is coercing them to violate their conscience.”

Joe Wolverton, II at The New American: n a statement issued to LifeNews, the attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Seneca Hardwood, explained why his organization is taking on the federal government.
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman told LifeNews: All Americans, including job creators and providers, should be free to live according to their faith rather than be forced into violating their own consciences. The court has done the right thing in issuing an order against the administration’s abortion pill mandate, just as many other courts have done. For the many family-run businesses affected by the mandate, the court stated it well: “the mandate’s requirements impose a substantial burden on their exercise of religion.”

Ed Whelan at NRO: But as I explained of one such ruling (by the Tenth Circuit in the Hobby Lobby case), what those courts are really ruling, without understanding what they are doing, is that an employer’s refusal to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives or abortifacients cannot be an exercise of religion. Such a ruling is patently wrong, as the only relevant question for purposes of the exercise of religion element is whether the objector is acting from a sincerely held religious conviction.

Huffington Post: “This is a family that provides generous benefits in their business and they want to be free to live according to their faith, but this Obamacare mandate is coercing them to violate their conscious,” said Matt Bowman, the senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom who represented the plaintiffs in the case.

The Hill: The other retiring Democrats are Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Carl Levin (Mich.) and Frank Lautenberg (N.J.).

AP: Rejecting the Medicaid expansion in the federal health care law could have unexpected consequences for states where Republican lawmakers remain steadfastly opposed to what they scorn as “Obamacare.”