BREAKING: Justice Sotomayor blocks HHS Mandate
Only hours before the law was to take effect, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has blocked implementation of part of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. The legislation in question would have forced religion-affiliated organizations to provide health insurance for employees covering a range of preventive care, free of charge, including contraception. Failure to implement Obamacare coverage by the January 1 deadline would have resulted in substantial penalties. Since the Catholic Church prohibits the use of contraceptives, lawyer Mark Rienzi argued that the mandated insurance was not acceptable. Sotomayor’s stay follows a late-afternoon request to President Obama from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, archbishop of Louisville and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archbishop Kurtz had asked President Obama to grant Catholic organizations temporary relief from penalties for noncompliance with the requirements of the HHS Mandate. ...