I was just reading Alito, and Alito says that the non-profits have been provided an accommodation and the government didn’t even think to offer that same accommodation to the for-profits, thereby making it a MANDATE only directed at for-profits.
The accommodation, as I understand it, involves the insurance company having to pay for the coverage that is denied by those with a religious objection without any remuneration from the company being covered. In other words, the insurance companies eat the cost...BUT...if I recall correctly, they are guaranteed a certain level of profitability by the government because they are the providers of health care coverage under ObamaCare.
As you suggest about schools, I do think a business will have to make it known somehow that they have a religious objection to providing the full health plan dictated by ObamaCare. I imagine it will end up being some kind of application.
The school’s (and others) objection involves having to be a participant at any level by affirming some government document that they are not providing the coverage, and then that triggering a secondary method for employees to receive the coverage. They don’t want to be involved at any level no matter how many degrees of separation the government provides.
Hobby Lobby is not likely to make that same argument because they already have said they will pay for contraception, just not those 4 varieties. I assume they have no “level of separation” argument so long as they don’t have to pay.
Who is right? The schools are right about there still being a fingerprint on anything that gets approved because they’ve filed objection paperwork. They are saying they should be permitted to buy a policy designed from the start in the way they want it without their having to approve a reduction of that policy.
Hobby Lobby must think that complicity isn’t the issue for them so long as they don’t have to directly engage in what they object to.
I’ve never understood how that was supposed to work. It seems the insurance companies would just charge higher fees to offset the cost of any contraception coverage the religious non-profits employees would use.