On Friday, for the fourth time in three years, the Supreme Court agreed to rule on challenges to the new federal health care law — this time, religious non-profit institutions’ objection to the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, which requires employers to provide their female employees with health insurance that includes no-cost access to certain forms of birth control. The Court accepted parts of all seven cases on that issue filed with it under the ACA. It has not yet spelled out how those will be consolidated for a hearing — planned for late March.
In all seven cases, the Court will rule on whether the mandate itself and the government’s attempt to arrange a way to exempt non-profit charities, schools, colleges, and hospitals from the mandate violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It specifically refused, in two of the cases, to hear claims that the government has discriminated among those allowed an exemption and those not — claims made either under RFRA or under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
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