The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare announced last June, did not close the door to other challenges to the new healthcare law. Today the court ordered the 4th US Circuit court of Appeals to reconsider Liberty University’s legal argument that President Obama's health care law violates the school’s
religious freedom.
“Today’s ruling breathes new life into our challenge to ObamaCare,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which filed the suit on behalf of the school, said Monday. “Our fight against ObamaCare is far from over.”
A federal judge in 2010 rejected Liberty’s claim, and the appeals court later ruled the lawsuit was premature and failed to address the substance of the school's arguments.
....The school is challenging the constitutionality of the part of the law that mandates employers provide insurance and whether forcing insurers to pay for birth control is unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.
The appeals court ruled last year the Anti-Injunction Act barred it from addressing the merits in the case. The act blocks any challenge to a "tax" before a taxpayer pays it -- in this case referring to the penalties associated with failing to obtain health insurance.
So it looks as if Judge Roberts may get another turn at bat, because no matter what the Court of Appeals rules, this will be an important freedom of religion ruling and will end up at the feet of the Supreme Court. Of course thanks to Obama's reelection but the time it reaches the top court, there may be a few more liberal justices joining the Supremes, ready support any progressive policy, constitutional or not.
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