Abortion-Drug Mandate Not Affected by Administration’s Delay of Parts of Health Care Law Lawsuits against HHS Mandate not impacted

WASHINGTON, DC –    The following statement can be attributed to Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for Becket:

In a blog post yesterday afternoon, the Treasury Department announced that it will delay enforcing three sections of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until 2015. This announcement says nothing about the HHS abortion-drug mandate, which has now been finalized and which continues to severely burden the religious liberty of millions of Americans. The HHS mandate is being challenged with increasing success in numerous lawsuits around the country.

According to the Treasury statement, employers will now have until 2015 to comply with two of the ACA’s technical reporting requirements, and will also have an additional year before they must pay the $2-3,000 per year “employer shared responsibility payments” imposed on large employers who fail to offer any health insurance at all.

The Treasury, however, does not announce any plans to suspend or delay the requirement that all large group employer health plans comply with the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The HHS mandate therefore remains fully in force.

The announcement also says nothing about the $100 per employee daily tax penalty, which is in a different statute and subject to an entirely separate reporting requirement not mentioned in the Treasury statement.

We will continue to defend the conscience of millions of Americans impacted by the HHS abortion-drug mandate.

There are now 62 separate lawsuits challenging the HHS mandate. Becket led the charge against the unconstitutional HHS mandate. Becket currently represents: Hobby Lobby, Wheaton College, East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Colorado Christian University, the Eternal Word Television Network, Ave Maria University, and Belmont Abbey College.

Becket is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions—from Anglicans to Zoroastrians. For 18 years its attorneys have been recognized as experts in the field of church-state law. Becket recently won a 9-0 victory in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, which The Wall Street Journal called one of “the most important religious liberty cases in a half century.”

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For more information, or to arrange an interview with one of the attorneys, please contact Melinda Skea at media@becketlaw.org or call 202.349.7224.