Court rules Notre Dame must comply with ACA

The University of Notre Dame must comply with an Affordable Care Act provision mandating it pays for contraceptives for students and staff.

The 2-1 ruling, handed down Friday by Judge Richard Posner in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was issued after the Catholic university requested they not have to file a form declaring Notre Dame should be allowed a religious objection.

Notre Dame administers employee health plans through Meritain Health without having to provide insurance coverage. As for student coverage, the university operates under a contract with Aetna, a parent company to Meritain. With the contract, students have the option whether to receive health insurance from Aetna, according to the ruling.

“We imagine that what the university wants is an order forbidding Aetna and Meritain to provide any contraceptive coverage to Notre Dame staff or students pending final judgment in the district court,” Posner said in the ruling. “But we can’t issue such an order.”

Notre Dame’s failure to join Aetna and Meritain as defendants in the complaint is puzzling, Posner wrote. Although religious institutions have broad immunity from being required to engage in acts that violate the tenets of its faith, he said in the ruling, “it has no right to prevent other institutions ... from engaging in acts that merely offend (Notre Dame).”

Michael Majchrowicz