My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/6708/my_business__myself__piercing_the_corporate_veil/

January 12, 2013
challenges to the ACA contraceptive coverage mandate may bring surprise risks to small business owners
By HOWARD M. FRIEDMAN
Howard M. Friedman is a law professor emeritus from the University of Toledo, living in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the editor of Religion Clause blog.



Hobby Lobby founder David Green
Howard M. Friedman

On January 8, a small Minnesota-based medical device company, Annex Medical, Inc., lost its preliminary bid to avoid offering its employees health insurance policies that cover contraception.

Because Annex has only 16 full-time and two part-time employees, the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” does not require it to provide health insurance to its workers at all. (Only businesses with 50 or more employees are required by the new law to provide insurance.) However, if Annex chooses to offer its employees insurance, its plan—like those of larger companies—must comply with the minimum requirements for preventive health care services, including contraceptive services.

In keeping with emphasis of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on “wellness,” the law requires most insurance plans to cover preventive health care services without co-pays. Government regulations spell out which services are covered, and among women’s preventive services are all FDA-approved contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures, along with patient education and counseling.

Since the regulations were announced, the “contraception mandate” has been the cause of great controversy, as many non-profit religious organizations, including Catholic hospitals and religiously-affiliated colleges, have objected to offering birth control services through their insurance plans.

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