Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell

On January 14, 2019, a district court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the application of final regulations governing religious and moral-based exemptions from the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) mandate to cover contraceptives without cost sharing. The final regulations would have dramatically expanded the scope of existing exemptions and

As part of its requirement that non-grandfathered group health plans provide benefits for certain preventive care without cost sharing, the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) requires these plans to cover at least one form of women’s contraception in each of the 18 methods identified by the Food and Drug Administration.  The U.S. Supreme Court previously ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2751 (2014) that the contraceptive mandate was invalid with respect to for-profit, closely held corporations whose owners objected to providing the insurance coverage on religious grounds.