I started writing this post before Wheaton College came down. I will address this issue in a separate post. Because it is now somewhat moot, I’ll leave the various quotations here for future reference.
Alito:
There are other ways in which Congress or HHS could equally ensure that every woman has cost-free access to the particular contra- ceptives at issue here and, indeed, to all FDA-approved contraceptives.
Although HHS has made this system available to reli- gious nonprofits that have religious objections to the con- traceptive mandate, HHS has provided no reason why the same system cannot be made available when the owners of for-profit corporations have similar religious objections. We therefore conclude that this system constitutes an alternative that achieves all of the Government’s aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty. And under RFRA, that conclusion means that enforcement of the HHS contraceptive mandate against the objecting parties in these cases is unlawful.
The most straightforward way of doing this would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections. This would certainly be less restrictive of the plaintiffs’ religious liberty, and HHS has not shown, see §2000bb–1(b)(2), that this is not a viable alternative….If, as HHS tells us, providing all women with cost-free access to all FDA-approved methods of contraception is a Government interest of the highest order, it is hard to understand HHS’s argument that it cannot be required under RFRA to pay anything in order to achieve this important goal.
HHS contends that RFRA does not permit us to take this option into account because “RFRA cannot be used to require creation of entirely new programs.” Brief for HHS in 13–354, at 15.37 But we see nothing in RFRA that supports this argument, and drawing the line between the “creation of an entirely new program” and the modification of an existing program (which RFRA surely allows) would be fraught with problems. We do not doubt that cost may be an important factor in the least-restrictive-means analysis, but both RFRA and its sister statute, RLUIPA, may in some circumstances require the Government to expend additional funds to accommodate citizens’ religious beliefs. Cf. §2000cc–3(c) (RLUIPA: “[T]his chapter may require a government to incur expenses in its own opera- tions to avoid imposing a substantial burden on religious exercise.”). HHS’s view that RFRA can never require the Government to spend even a small amount reflects a judgment about the importance of religious liberty that was not shared by the Congress that enacted that law.
It is HHS’s apparent belief that no insurance-coverage mandate would violate RFRA—no matter how significantly it impinges on the religious liberties of employers—that would lead to intolerable consequences. Under HHS’s view, RFRA would permit the Government to require all employers to provide coverage for any medical procedure allowed by law in the jurisdiction in question—for in- stance, third-trimester abortions or assisted suicide. The owners of many closely held corporations could not in good conscience provide such coverage, and thus HHS would effectively exclude these people from full participation in the economic life of the Nation. RFRA was enacted to prevent such an outcome.
ACA does not create a large national pool of tax revenue for use in purchasing healthcare coverage. Ra- ther, individual employers like the plaintiffs purchase insurance for their own employees. And contrary to the principal dissent’s characterization, the employers’ contri- butions do not necessarily funnel into “undifferentiated funds.” Post, at 23. The accommodation established by HHS requires issuers to have a mechanism by which to “segregate premium revenue collected from the eligible organization from the monies used to provide payments for contraceptive services.” 45 CFR §147.131(c)(2)(ii). Recognizing a religious accommodation under RFRA for particular coverage requirements, therefore, does not threaten the viability of ACA’s comprehensive scheme in the way that recognizing religious objections to particular expenditures from general tax revenues would.43
We do not decide today whether an approach of this type complies with RFRA for purposes of all religious claims.39
At a minimum, however, it does not impinge on the plain- tiffs’ religious belief that providing insurance coverage for the contraceptives at issue here violates their religion, and it serves HHS’s stated interests equally well.40 40 The principal dissent faults us for being “noncommital” in refusing to decide a case that is not before us here. Post, at 30. The less re- strictive approach we describe accommodates the religious beliefs as- serted in these cases, and that is the only question we are permitted to address.
Justice Kennedy:
The Court properly does not resolve whether one freedom should be protected by creating incentives for additional government constraints. In these cases, it is the Court’s understanding that an accommoda- tion may be made to the employers without imposition of a whole new program or burden on the Government. As the Court makes clear, this is not a case where it can be estab- lished that it is difficult to accommodate the government’s interest, and in fact the mechanism for doing so is already in place.
Justice Ginsburg states the obvious–there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Ultimately the taxpayer picks up the tab for the “exemption.”
And such an alternative, the Court suggests, there always will be whenever, in lieu of tolling an enterprise claiming a religion-based exemption, the government, i.e., the general public, can pick up the tab. See ante, at 41–43.1
FN- 1 The Court insists it has held none of these things, for another less restrictive alternative is at hand: extending an existing accommoda- tion, currently limited to religious nonprofit organizations, to encom- pass commercial enterprises. See ante, at 3–4. With that accommoda- tion extended, the Court asserts, “women would still be entitled to all [Food and Drug Administration]-approved contraceptives without cost sharing.” Ante, at 4. In the end, however, the Court is not so sure. In stark contrast to the Court’s initial emphasis on this accommodation, it ultimately declines to decide whether the highlighted accommodation is even lawful. See ante, at 44 (“We do not decide today whether an approach of this type complies with RFRA . . . .”).
More from RBG:
Because the Court cannot easily answer that question, it proposes something else: Extension to commercial enterprises of the accommodation already afforded to nonprofit religion-based organizations. See ante, at 3–4, 9–10, 43–45. “At a minimum,” according to the Court, such an approach would not “impinge on [Hobby Lobby’s and Conestoga’s] religious belief.” Ante, at 44. I have already discussed the “special solicitude” gen- erally accorded nonprofit religion-based organizations that exist to serve a community of believers, solicitude never before accorded to commercial enterprises comprising employees of diverse faiths.
Ultimately, the Court hedges on its proposal to align for- profit enterprises with nonprofit religion-based organiza tions. “We do not decide today whether [the] approach [the opinion advances] complies with RFRA for purposes of all religious claims.” Ante, at 44. Counsel for Hobby Lobby was similarly noncommittal. Asked at oral argu- ment whether the Court-proposed alternative was ac- ceptable,27 counsel responded: “We haven’t been offered that accommodation, so we haven’t had to decide what kind of objection, if any, we would make to that.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 86–87.
27 On brief, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga barely addressed the exten- sion solution, which would bracket commercial enterprises with non- profit religion-based organizations for religious accommodations pur- poses. The hesitation is understandable, for challenges to the adequacy of the accommodation accorded religious nonprofit organizations are currently sub judice. See, e.g., Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Sebelius, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2013 WL 6839900 (Colo., Dec. 27, 2013), injunction pending appeal granted, 571 U. S. ___ (2014). At another point in today’s decision, the Court refuses to consider an argument neither “raised below [nor] advanced in this Court by any party,” giving Hobby Lobby and Conestoga “[no] opportunity to respond to [that] novel claim.” Ante, at 33. Yet the Court is content to decide this case (and this case only) on the ground that HHS could make an accommodation never suggested in the parties’ presentations. RFRA cannot sensibly be read to “requir[e] the government to . . . refute each and every conceivable alternative regulation,” United States v. Wilgus, 638 F. 3d 1274, 1289 (CA10 2011), especially where the alternative on which the Court seizes was not pressed by any challenger.
Conestoga suggests that, if its employees had to acquire and pay for the contraceptives (to which the corporation objects) on their own, a tax credit would qualify as a less restrictive alternative. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 13– 356, p. 64. A tax credit, of course, is one variety of “let the government pay.” In addition to departing from the exist- ing employer-based system of health insurance, Conesto- ga’s alternative would require a woman to reach into her own pocket in the first instance, and it would do nothing for the woman too poor to be aided by a tax credit.