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Illinois church group gets exemption to Obamacare mandate

An Illinois-based organization is one of two groups granted an exemption from having to provide contraceptive coverage to employees under the Affordable Care Act.
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(CNN) — The Supreme Court has temporarily delayed key requirements of the Affordable Care Act impacting religious-affiliated groups, accelerating another high-stakes legal test for the sweeping law championed by President Barack Obama.

In a surprising twist just hours before the start of the New Year when most major rules of Obamacare were set to take effect, Justice Sonia Sotomayor exempted two Catholic Church-affiliated nonprofits from having to provide contraceptive coverage to employees of face fines for non-compliance.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity congregation of Roman Catholics in Denver, and the Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, objected on moral and religious grounds and were excused from having to comply until Friday at least.

Sotomayor set that date as the deadline for the federal government to file a legal response.

The White House on Wednesday expressed support for the measure.

The justice’s action was narrowly applied but it could ultimately impact dozens of religious groups and businesses that have mounted legal challenges in recent months, depending on how the court ultimately handles the matter.

The contraception issue has been a major sticking point in the law, Obama’s signature diplomatic achievement, that overall has been the subject of enormous legal and political controversy.

Although enacted in 2010, key requirements of the Affordable Care Act are just now kicking into gear following years of fierce political and other turmoil that included a Supreme Court ruling that found it constitutional and a flawed rollout of its online enrollment process this past fall.

Congressional Republicans and others who bitterly oppose Obamacare call it government overreach, a burden on business and the economy, and a regulatory disaster. Repeated attempts to overturn it have failed yet Republicans continue to press the issue in the courts and on the campaign trail.

The church and state issue now in the spotlight involves rules negotiated last year between the Obama administration and various outside groups.

Under the law, churches and houses of worships are exempt from the contraception mandate.

But other nonprofit religious-affiliated groups, such as church-run hospitals, parochial schools and charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor, must either provide no-cost contraception coverage or have a third-party insurer provide separate benefits without the employer’s direct involvement.

A White House official on Wednesday said the Obama administration was confident the rules “strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious organizations with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage.”

The matter handled by Sotomayor was separate from other emergency appeals filed on Tuesday by Catholic archdioceses in Michigan, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. They were not acted on because lower courts had already issued injunctions temporarily blocking enforcement.

These organizations are all seeking delays around the employer-contraception requirement, saying in their court filing it would force them “to choose between onerous penalties or becoming complicit in a grave moral wrong.”

Moreover, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, pressed Obama directly on the issue.

He asked him in a letter to delay the mandates impacting religious groups and some businesses.

Kurtz pointed to other delays the administration has made, such as putting off until 2015 the requirement for all employers with more than 50 workers to provide health coverage.

The Supreme Court agreed last month to hear two cases involving for-profit corporations that contend their religious liberty is violated by the law.

The White House said in November that it believes a requirement on contraceptives is “lawful and essential to women’s health.”

CNN’s Eric Marrapodi and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.

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