This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog. 

This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog. 

This is the third and (I promise) final installment in my skirmish with Josh Blackman over a brief that he and Cato Institute filed in support of Little Sisters of the Poor’s quixotic challenge to regulations requiring them to fill out a form to obtain an exemption from providing contraceptive coverage to its employees. If you haven’t read the previous posts, you can do so here (my first post), here (Josh’s response to me), here (my first reply to Josh), and here (Josh’s second response to me). The basic gist is that, contrary to Cato’s brief, (1) HHS had the authority to implement the nonprofit accommodation, and (2) if HHS didn’t have the authority to issue the accommodation, then Hobby Lobby no longer controls whether the original contraceptive coverage requirement satisfies RFRA, because the Court in Hobby Lobby pointed to the HHS accommodation as the basis for concluding that a less-restrictive alternative exists.

This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog. 

Josh Blackman has replied to my post criticizing the Cato Institute’s amicus brief (which Josh coauthored) in support of the cert petition in the Little Sisters contraception case. My original post made two arguments: (1) if you take away the nonprofit accommodation, Hobby Lobby no longer supplies a rule of decision, because the presence of the nonprofit accommodation was what led the Court to conclude that RFRA barred the coverage requirement, and (2) if you prevent regulatory agencies from offering reasonable, tailored accommodations to their regulations, the result is bad for religious liberty.

This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog. 

Fresh of its unsuccessful attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act in King v. Burwell, the Cato Institute is back for more. This time, Cato has filed an amicus brief in support of Supreme Court review in Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. This is one of the many, many (many) challenges brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) by nonprofit organizations to an accommodation, offered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), exempting religious nonprofits from providing contraceptive coverage to their employees. To take advantage of the accommodation, nonprofits need only provide written notice to the government of their objection and the name of their insurance provider or plan administrator. At that point, the government arranges for the nonprofit organization’s insurance company or plan administrator to provide the coverage at no cost to the nonprofit or its employees.