Court: State cannot sue over religious exemption expansion
The legal fight over the ACA’s contraceptive mandate exemption is far from over. The Massachusetts decision comes after federal judges in California and Pennsylvania halted the administration’s exemption rules. In December 2017, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. temporarily blocked the exemption extension from going forward in favor of California and four other states that joined the lawsuit – New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Earlier that month, U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled similarly in a decision for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Both Mr. Gilliam and Ms. Beetlestone were appointed to the bench by President Obama.
The Trump administration has indicated that it plans to appeal the rulings. In a summary of the rules, the administration said the new policies will “better balance the government’s interest in promoting coverage for contraceptive and sterilization services with the government’s interests in providing conscience protections for entities with sincerely held moral convictions.”
