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| Demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court on Monday, following the court’s decision on the Hobby Lobby case. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times |
The administration must move fast. Legal and health care experts expect a rush to court involving scores of employers seeking to take advantage of the two decisions, one involving Hobby Lobby Stores, which affects for-profit businesses, and the other on Wheaton College that concerns religiously affiliated nonprofit groups. About 100 cases are pending.
One proposal the White House is studying would put companies’ insurers or health plan administrators on the spot for contraceptive coverage, with details of reimbursement to be worked out later.
Another would give the administration itself a larger role in offering cost-free coverage to women who cannot get it through their employers, although the option for a new government entitlement appears unrealistic for financial and political reasons.
The White House is under such pressure that no one has been able to work out details of how the alternatives would be financed or administered.
Administration officials said they were determined to ensure the broadest possible coverage of contraceptives for the largest number of women without requiring employers to violate their religious beliefs.
Mark L. Rienzi, a lawyer who represented both Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College, said the administration had the tools to make an alternative solution work. “The government can find other ways to deliver contraceptives to people without forcing nuns and religious colleges to participate,” he said.
That is not the way Justice Sonia Sotomayor looks at it. In her dissent in the Wheaton College case on Thursday, she said the challenge facing the government was “daunting — if not impossible.”
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