The world has fallen apart!
Via Weekly Standard:
On Wednesday morning, Vox published a leaked draft of a proposed federal regulation that would allow business owners to opt out of Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate for religious or moral reasons.
“Employers seeking an exemption would not be required to notify the government, under the drafted rule, though they would have to make clear in their health plan documents that they do not cover contraception and would be required to notify their employees of any change in benefits,” Vox’s Dylan Scott and Sarah Kliff report.
The mandate was already in legal limbo before the Trump administration began drafting this rule. In 2014, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that the mandate violated the freedom of religion of Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts chain whose evangelical Christian owners objected to covering four of the 20 types of contraception mandated by the federal government. (Hobby Lobby’s owners objected to covering drugs they believed could induce abortions early in pregnancy, but not drugs they believed merely prevent conception).