Supreme Court decisions about religious freedom and when life begins get attention even when raised by something as commonplace as health insurance. But for most employers that offer health insurance, the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision changes nothing – they already comply with the ACA’s contraception mandate and
have no religious objections to doing so. (See our Alert for details of the Supreme Court’s decision that for-profit closely held corporations cannot be required to cover certain contraceptives under their health plans if doing so conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs of the corporations’ owners.)
Some employers have been anxiously awaiting this decision and want to take immediate action to drop some or all contraceptive coverage from their health plans. Before doing so, however, employers may want to allow at least a few days for the dust to settle.
- The decision relates only to closely held companies – publicly traded companies and others that are not, essentially, family-owned businesses will not be able to avoid the mandate due to this ruling. The Supreme Court did not draw a clear line showing which companies are protected under this ruling.
- Business owners who do not have a sincerely held religious conviction against contraception – or at least some forms of contraception – are not affected by this ruling. Establishing the existence of such a religious conviction may be difficult in some cases.
- We expect that HHS will extend the opt-out procedure that applies to nonprofit religious organizations to closely held for-profit companies whose owners hold sincere religious beliefs that are in conflict with the mandate. We hope that HHS will let us know promptly whether this is the direction it intends to take.