Obamacare was back in federal court facing serious challenges this week, the administration rewrote the law again, and the March 31 deadline for signing up turns out to be as firm as President Barack Obama’s infamous red lines.
Making the biggest headlines was the U.S. Supreme Court hearing on challenges by two privately owned corporations to the Obamacare mandate that they provide insurance coverage for a few contraceptives they consider to be abortifacients that violate their Christian principles.
The administration’s stunted view is that religious liberty essentially applies to houses of worship and a few related entities and that no one in business has such a right. With the questioning of the justices mostly split along liberal and conservative lines, Chief Justice John Roberts offered a potential compromise. He said religious liberty may be the right of corporations closely held by a few individuals like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialities, the family-owned firms that brought the case. Such a ruling would not apply publicly owned and traded firms.
The founders enshrined the right of conscience in the First Amendment. Obamacare demonstrates how ever-bigger government invariably intrudes into matters of personal liberty and individual rights.
