Bloomberg BNA’s Kimberly Robinson covers The Never-Ending Story: More Attacks on Obamacare’s ‘Contraceptive Mandate.’”
After discussing the ongoing legal challenges by nonprofit organizations to an accommodation that already relieves them of any obligation to include contraception in their health plans, Robinson points out that a federal appeals court recently reinstated a legal challenge by a Missouri state legislator who “claims the law forces him to provide his daughters with access to contraceptive methods that violate his religious beliefs, because his employer-provided health plan won’t allow him to opt out of contraceptive coverage.”
The trial court had dismissed the case because the regulations apply to insurance providers, not to the individual purchaser. The appeals court said that the lawsuit can proceed anyway, because if providers weren’t required to provide contraception, it’s possible that they would offer a policy that excluded contraception. The court didn’t take a position on the merits of the legislator’s claim, which arises from his desire to control the sexual and reproductive choices of his daughters, two of whom are adults.