A federal judge in Nebraska dismissed one of the lawsuits brought over the ACA’s requirement that all employers offer their female employees birth control.
U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom concluded that the plaintiffs did not face immediate harm and therefore could not sue to block the part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that requires employers to include free birth control in their healthcare programs.
The states – which include Texas, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Michigan – argued that the law threatened their budgets by giving religious employers an incentive to stop providing health insurance coverage to their employees to avoid the requirements of the rule. That would drive up enrollment in the states’ Medicaid programs, they contended.
But the judge concluded that the alleged harms were too remote and hypothetical.
On small battle won. And I am struck by the lameness of this argument. But there are more lawsuits coming up, including one from various Catholic institutions, who have decided that politics is what they do now instead of pastoral care.