Tag Archives: Topic: Obamacare

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.

NCPA Policy Digest: Two provisions in particular will require thousands of new IRS agents, and billions in funding, to enforce: the law’s individual mandate, forcing most Americans to buy government-approved health insurance; and its employer mandate, forcing most employers to take money out of workers’ paychecks to purchase costly health insurance on their behalf.

The Hill: Republican Sen. John Thune (S.D.) is demanding that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) refrain from implementing ObamaCare while investigators probe the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

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.

The Hill: “He thought the opposition to it would lessen after the [2010] election. I said, ‘It’s just the beginning.’ I said, ‘It’s going to grow because I can tell you it’s not going to go away and it’s going to get worse,’” Snowe said in a radio interview moderated by Julie Mason, host of SiriusXM’s Press Pool.

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.

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.

Global Post (Reuters): The IRS is charged with distributing health insurance tax credits through the state exchanges. But the complaint argues that the federally created exchanges cannot deliver the tax credits because the law does not say explicitly that they can. The challengers are asking for a federal court order barring administration and enforcement of the healthcare law in these 33 states . . . At least six other lawsuits against the healthcare law are pending in court’s around the country. The case, No. 13-623 Halbig et al v. Sebelius et al, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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.

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.

NCPA Policy Digest: Twenty states and the District of Columbia have signed on to the expansion, and 14 are planning to decline. But 16 remain in limbo as lawmakers clash in the final days and weeks of the legislative calendar, when many must come to a decision in time for the provision to kick in next year.

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.

Washington Post: This comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is out with a poll Tuesday morning looking at how much Americans know about the health-care overhaul—before a deluge of public outreach, set to begin this summer, kicks off.

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.”

Breitbart: Barack Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is panicked enough about the collapse of ObamaCare that they have hired a public relations firms at a cost of $8 million to sell the program to the public.

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.

Forbes: Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, was among the many GOP state executives who made national headlines this winter by endorsing Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, America’s government-run health insurance program for the poor. But what isn’t making headlines is that Michigan’s legislature, like its counterparts in Florida, Ohio, and Arizona, is not going along.

Politico: Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

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.”

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.

LifeNews: Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman responded to the decision. His firm is helping Seneca Hardwood Lumber Co. in its case against the Obama administration. He 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 National Review: Greenhouse is wrong that, in the cases against the HHS contraceptive mandate, plaintiffs “challenging the requirement for employer-provided health insurance to cover birth control almost invariably train their attack on emergency contraception.” There in in fact a general divide between the Catholic plaintiffs, whose objections apply to contraceptives as well as abortifacients, and the non-Catholic Christian plaintiffs, whose objections are indeed generally directed at the possible abortifacient effect of emergency contraceptives and of copper IUDs. But let’s unpack Greenhouse’s more serious errors and omissions:

Alan Sears at NC Register: Over the past few decades, attempts to limit religious freedom in the public square have expanded into what is nearing a hostile exile.

AP: Arkansas’ plan to use federal money to buy private insurance for low-income residents won final approval from state lawmakers Wednesday, endorsing a model that several other states are eyeing as a possible alternative to expanding Medicaid.

AP: Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana confronted Obama’s health secretary Wednesday during a routine budget hearing that turned tense.

The Hill: The Health and Human Services Department has already begun laying the groundwork to raise awareness of the law’s insurance exchanges, which are scheduled to open their enrollment periods in October.

Religion Clause Blog: In Priests for Life v. Sebelius, (ED NY, April 12, 2013), a New York federal district court dismissed on ripeness grounds a challenge by a non-profit Catholic organization to the contraceptive coverage mandate under the Affordable Care Act.