The Court Revisits Obamacare

Obamacare’s legal troubles were far from ended when Chief Justice Roberts ruled in 2012 that the law’s “penalty” for failing to buy health insurance was really a “tax,” purportedly rendering the Act constitutional under Congress’s power to tax, even though neither he nor anyone else could say whether the Constitution recognized or allowed so sui generis a tax.

So far is the litigation from over, in fact, that if you’re planning a legal challenge to Obamacare, you’ll have get in line. Two of those in line got good news today: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear their challenges. Both concern Obamacare’s mandate that employer provided health insurance policies cover such things as sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients, even in the face of an employer’s religious objections. In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled for the individual employer. In Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled against the corporate employer. At issue are both constitutional and statutory claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).


Ilya Shapiro has discussed the issues more fully here. And earlier on I had a short post on the subject here. The Court will likely hear oral argument in March. Maybe the website will be running by then.