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The Supreme Court's dangerous abuse of religious exemptions
Link to tweet
No paywall
https://archive.ph/wzsGK
Another week, another totally bonkers ruling out of a federal court in Texas. Earlier this month, Judge Reed O’Connor (the same judge who tried overturning the entire Affordable Care Act in 2018 before we being overruled by the US Supreme Court) decided that employers do not have to offer insurance plans that cover PrEP (drugs that prevent the spread of HIV) if they have religious objections.
Apparently providing healthcare to the poor, the sick and the vulnerable can be anti-Christian. Who knew? Kidding – those of us who need reproductive healthcare have known for a while.
Republicans have been trying to dismantle Obamacare since 2010 with all kinds of bogus challenges. They have failed in Congress multiple times. The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality (obviously that could change with the current court, but Roberts sided with the liberal wing to uphold the ACA in 2012). Unfortunately Republicans keep chugging like the evil engine that could and the ACA has been challenged almost 2,000 times through litigation.
After the Supreme Court upholding, Republicans changed tactics.
In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that privately held companies could be exempted from the mandate to provide no-cost birth control, in accordance with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
*snip*
