There are also three rustic cabins, all fully insulated. You do have to walk into them – with distances varying by cabin and season. You also have to bring your own sleeping bag and mat, cooking gear and all your water. (If there w...
The US Supreme Court recently heard its third case regarding the contraceptive coverage mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which requires all health insurance plans to cover US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved contraceptives without cost sharing. The pair of consolidated cases, 1 Little Sisters of the Poor v Pennsylvania and Trump v Pennsylvania, concerns the Trump administration's regulations 2 that vastly expanded the universe of employers exempt from the mandate. The rules would exempt from this ACA requirement any employer with a religious or nonreligious moral objection to providing contraceptive coverage. In July 2019, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a nationwide injunction, so the rules have not yet taken effect. If the US Supreme Court reverses the decision of the Third Circuit and upholds the new rules, many employers could remove contraceptive coverage from their insurance plans. For women with employer-sponsored health insurance, such a decision could leave many without contraceptive coverage and thereby undermine public health.
In a 2016 decision, Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on this substantial burden question, instead directing the agencies to better accommodate religious exercise. Furthermore, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Court held that the contraceptive mandate itself—absent the self-certification accommodation— violated RFRA as applied to closely-held, for-profit companies, because mandating the provision of contraceptive coverage without exception substantially burdened some employers' religious exercise. In 2017, the federal government issued new interim regulations in an attempt to " avoid the imposition" of a substantial burden under RFRA. The agencies determined it was "necessary and appropriate to provide the expanded exemptions, " allowing organizations to opt out of contraceptive coverage without participating in the self-certification process. The agencies provided a similarly broad exception for organizations with "moral convictions" opposing contraception. Both regulations made the self-certification accommodation optional.