- May 22 - Korte and Grote, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Chicago
- May 23 - Hobby Lobby, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Denver
- May 30 - Conestoga Wood, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Philadelphia
- June 11 - Autocam, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, Cincinnati
HHS Mandate Challenges Reach Appellate Level
05/08/13
By Hadley Heath
A handful of cases challenging ObamaCare's HHS birth control mandate will be heard before appellate courts this month and next. Mark your calendars:
The Mandate goes into effect on August 1, so this summer's hearings and injunctions will be very important.
Small Businesses Sue Over IRS Rule
05/07/13
By Hadley Heath
This week a group of small businesses from six different states filed a suit over ObamaCare's IRS Rule.
As a brief synopsis, the "IRS Rule" is shorthand for a change made after the passage of the law by the Obama Administration (via the IRS) to deliver subsidies and tax credits to health exchanges operated by the federal government. Remember, each state has a choice to establish or not establish its own exchange, and states that refuse default to a federally operated exchange.
The original intent and letter of the ObamaCare law prohibited the flow of money to consituents in federal exchanges, as an incentive to get state leaders to establish exchanges. When more than half of the states refused, the Administration had to change the IRS rules governing these subsidies and tax credits so that the law would function more like it was intended.
The functional importantance of the exchange subsidies and tax credits cannot be overstated. They trigger the employer and individual mandates in the law, vital to ObamaCare's strategy to force everyone into insurance coverage.
Thus employers, like the small businesses suing, have standing to challenge this IRS powergrab. Laws aren't supposed to be rewritten by administrative agencies after they are passed.
The State of Oklahoma's case (Pruitt vs. Sebelius) also includes a challenge to the IRS rule.
The small-businesses suit is being coordinated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and was filed in the federal District of Columbia on May 2.
Scorecard on Religious Liberty Cases
03/14/13
By Hadley Heath
According to the Becket Fund, there are more than 50 cases - involving more than 150 plaintiffs - challenging the HHS mandate on contraception.
Twenty-one of the cases are led by for-profit companies as plaintiffs. Among these cases, there have been 18 decisions that have touched on the merits of the case, and plaintiffs have prevailed and secured injunctive relief in 13.
At least thirty cases are led by non-profit entities such as churches or charities. Among the 30 that Becket is tracking, no cases have been decided on the merits.
Click on their map below to go to their interactive site to learn more about the cases.
Freedomworks Informational Video about IRS Rule
01/14/13
By Hadley Heath
Check out this Freedomworks production, a livestreamed event on the health care exchanges and the illegal IRS rule currently being challenged in Pruitt v. Sebelius.
Supreme Court Says Liberty University Case is Not Over
11/26/12
By Hadley Heath
The Supreme Court ruled today that the Liberty University case was owed a second hearing at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. For everyone who thought ObamaCare's constitutional challenges were over with the Florida case, guess again.
In fact, there are many cases still open, and new cases open all the time.
Liberty's case is different from the challenges to the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. That's why SCOTUS says the challenges are still legitimate. Liberty University started out challenging the law for its potential use of public funding for abortions. The original complaint also pointed out that some religious dissenters are offered exemptions from the law's mandates, while others are not. The case expanded in 2012 to include a challenge to the HHS contraception mandate.
Interestingly, this case is also one of the several that challenge the employer mandates in the law. Along with Oklahoma's challenge to the IRS rule, and the actions that many states have taken to block the implementation of statewide exchanges (trojan horses for employer taxes), this case could have an impact on the functionality of the law's employer-sponsored insurance provisions.
Keep an eye on this case, the Fourth Circuit will give it a second hearing and could decide on it by spring 2013, opening another route back to the Supreme Court.