So much for the Obamacare comeback.
Just when the health care law seemed to be in a better place, with a big finish to the enrollment season and the early embarrassments fading into the background, the Supreme Court handed Obamacare’s opponents their biggest legal victory yet.
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The contraception coverage mandate isn’t central to the law, the way the individual mandate is. By letting some closely held employers — like family-owned businesses — opt out of the coverage if they have religious objections, the justices haven’t blown a hole in the law that unravels its ability to cover millions of Americans. They didn’t even overturn the contraception coverage rule itself. They just carved out an exemption for some employers from one benefit, one that wasn’t even spelled out when the law was passed.
(Also on POLITICO: SCOTUS sides with Hobby Lobby on birth control)
But politically, that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Obama administration overreached on one of the most sensitive cultural controversies in modern politics. And in doing so, the justices have given the Affordable Care Act one more setback that it didn’t need heading into the midterm elections.
“This will remind people why they don’t like the ACA to begin with,” said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. “People do not believe that a president, no matter what party they’re from, should be overbearing or intrusive into their religious practices.”
Republican admaker Brad Todd put it bluntly: “Anytime Obamacare is in the news, it’s a good thing for Republicans.”
(Also on POLITICO: Hobby Lobby ruling full text)
The ruling also allows Republicans to say that Obama and his law have violated one of the most respected constitutional protections: freedom of religion.
“They’ve overreached, and they’ve overreached in an area that’s very sacred,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List.
The court’s decision isn’t risk-free for Republicans. Democrats and abortion rights supporters are ready to pounce if it looks like Republicans are celebrating too loudly. They say this is fundamentally a fight about allowing women to control their own destinies and their own bodies, not about employers’ religious beliefs. And they can point to polls that show a majority of Americans support the contraception coverage.
“It’ll reinforce overall perceptions of the right as hostile to women,” said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg. “Even though it’s in the court, and not Congress, it’ll still be seen as part of the broader narrative of the war on women.”
(Earlier on POLITICO: Hobby Lobby aims for Obamacare win, Christian nation)
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the ruling “jeopardizes the health of women employed by these companies” and argued that “the owners of for-profit companies should not be allowed to assert their personal religious views to deny their employees federally mandated benefits.”
So far, Republicans don’t sound worried. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who’s up for reelection in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country — blasted out a victorious statement within minutes of the ruling: “Today’s Supreme Court decision makes clear that the Obama administration cannot trample on the religious freedoms that Americans hold dear.”
And potential Republican presidential candidates are weighing in, too. “Religious liberty will remain intact and all Americans can stay true to their faith without fear of big government intervention or punishment,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
But even some Republicans say their party needs to be careful not to beat this victory into the ground.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Poll says most side against Hobby Lobby)
“I wouldn’t advise Republicans to be grabbing the megaphones out of reporters’ hands,” said Katie Packer Gage, a Republican strategist and a former deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012. “This is a story that tells itself. We, as a party, don’t always do a good job of letting the stories tell themselves.”
It’s not the first legal defeat for the health care law – the Supreme Court did overrule the Obama administration in 2012 by making the law’s Medicaid expansion optional for the states. But that ruling was relatively minor compared to the main decision that upheld the rest of the law. This time, there is no victory for the Obama administration.
The justices tried to head off the “slippery slope” argument raised by supporters of the rule — that once the Supreme Court has carved out a religious exception for birth control, it could open the door to employers denying other health care benefits, too. They insisted this decision only applies only to contraception coverage, not to other health care services, like vaccines.
“Our decision in these cases is concerned solely with the contraceptive mandate,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the ruling. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs.”
But that’s unlikely to put the “slippery slope” argument to rest for everyone. “Where is the stopping point to the ‘let the government pay’ alternative?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent. “Suppose an employer’s sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of vaccines, or paying the minimum wage.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared that the ruling “jeopardizes women’s access to essential health care. Employers have no business intruding in the private health care decisions women make with their doctors.”
And supporters of the contraception coverage are sure to insist that the religious liberty of employees has now been curtailed.
True religious liberty “means I don’t get to tell anyone else what to do because of my religion,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Supporters of the contraception mandate frame the conservative fight against contraceptive coverage as putting bosses in charge of women’s health care. And now they can say that Republicans — particularly those who have filed legal briefs in support of Hobby Lobby — are the ones who put the bosses in control.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said the issue has the potential to drive turnout among young, unmarried women.
“These are huge constituencies that we have huge turnout problems for,” Lake said. “They are very turned off right now and think there is there is nothing in the political [world] that matters to their life.”
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1qiiLMy
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