WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday took up an appeal by President Donald Trump's administration seeking to enforce new federal rules allowing employers to obtain religious exemptions from an Obamacare requirement that health insurance that they provide to employees pays for women's birth control. At issue is a challenge by the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the administration's 2018 rule that permits broad religious and moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate and expands accommodations already allowed under the 2010 law dubbed Obamacare. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to reverse a nationwide injunction issued by a lower court blocking the rule from taking effect. The administration was joined by the Little Sisters of the Poor, an Roman Catholic order of nuns that is one of the groups seeking an exemption for its employees, although the group does not currently have to comply with the Obamacare mandate due to a separate Colorado court ruling in its favor. Arguments in the case before the high court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority including two justices appointed by Trump, are likely to be in April with a ruling due by the end of June.

Source: New York Times January 17, 2020 21:20 UTC