The Affordable Care Act — sometimes called “Obamacare” — was upheld this year in the Supreme Court, but that by no means indicates the litigation surrounding it is settled. Domino’s Pizza founder, Thomas Monaghan, recently won a temporary ruling disputing contraceptive and abortion coverage under the plan.
Monaghan sold his majority interest in Domino’s in 1998 and now is working with Domino’s Farms Corp, a Michigan property management firm. As a Catholic, he raises the question whether secular, for-profit enterprises, owned by religious people, are exempt from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. After all, the Catholic Church is, and Monaghan is a Catholic.
Federal Judge Lawrence Zatkoff sided with Monaghan, saying that he had “shown that abiding by the mandate will substantially burden his exercise of religion.”
“The [federal] government has failed to satisfy its burden of showing that its actions were narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest,” said the judge. “Therefore, the court finds that plaintiffs have established at lease some likelihood of succeeding on the merits” of their claim.
For his part, Monaghan says that “Causing death can never be considered a form of medical treatment,” and is fully opposed to funding abortion procedures. He does not consider contraception and abortion “health care.”
Obamacare is a strategy to force more people to get coverage in order to lower the cost of that coverage for everybody. What form of health care businesses are required to provide is still being worked out.