White House ‘confident’ in ObamaCare contraception mandate

The White House remains “confident” that ObamaCare’s contraception mandate is constitutional despite a temporary stay granted to a religious organization by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“We defer to the Department of Justice on litigation matters, but remain confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious employers with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage,” a White House official said.

{mosads}The issue is headed to the Supreme Court after two lower courts offered different opinions on the mandate, which requires employers to include birth control as part of their employee health insurance.

Churches are exempt from the ruling, but owners of some businesses have argued that they should also be exempt based on their own religious beliefs.

The temporary stay issued by Sotomayor was in response to the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, a Catholic nonprofit group in Colorado. Her stay will prevent the group from facing fines until the legal issues surrounding the case are resolved.

Late last year, the Supreme Court said it would review a challenge to the regulations brought by Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned craft chain. It will be the first legal challenge  to the Affordable Care Act heard by the high court since the 5-4 decision 17 months ago upholding the individual mandate as constitutional. 

In a statement issued Wednesday, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) called the mandate an “egregious and blatant violation of the religious freedom that Americans have enjoyed for more than 220 years since the ratification of the First Amendment.”

“No American should be forced to surrender their religious freedom or abandon their deeply held religious beliefs. I applaud Justice Sotomayor’s move to block this onerous government overreach, which violates Americans’ constitutional rights,” Blunt said.

The administration announced a workaround last year that allowed employees to get birth control directly from insurers. But some religious organizations have objected to that solution, saying that filling out a form enabling someone else to get birth control still represented a violation of religious liberty.

This story was updated at 12:43 p.m.