Trouble For Obama At The Supreme Court?

Justice Sotomayor, Jan 1, 2014

 Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: As many people were getting ready to celebrate the New Year, more than a few eyebrows were raised when news broke that Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an order blocking enforcement of Obamacare's contraception mandate. The order came as the result of an emergency appeal from the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, a charity run by Catholic nuns in Denver, Colorado.

It's always dangerous to try to predict how the justices will rule on any given issue. But the fact that Sotomayor -- Barack Obama's first appointee to the Supreme Court -- granted the injunction suggests that Obamacare's contraception mandate could be in trouble when the high court takes up the issue later this year.

Justice Sotomayor gave the Obama Administration until tomorrow morning to respond to her order. Predictably, the White House is digging in its heels and defending the mandate. A White House spokesman insisted the administration was confident that its rules strike the right balance between "providing women with free contraceptive coverage" and the religious objections of non-profit religious employers.

A lot of faith-based institutions disagree. The Washington Times reports that 91 cases have been filed against Obamacare's contraception mandate. An attorney representing the Little Sisters said, "The government has lots of ways to deliver contraceptives to people -- it doesn't need to force nuns to participate."

It's ironic that one of the biggest challenges facing Obamacare today stems from its assaults on the sanctity of life and religious liberty -- issues many in the Beltway establishment are urging candidates to avoid talking about. Yet as Fox News notes, "Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has put religion at the forefront of the ObamaCare debate…"

If conservatives want to win, they should embrace traditional values and force Democrats to defend their extreme positions on matters of faith and family.

Obamacare's Assault On The Middle Class
Throughout Barack Obama's campaigns for the White House, he repeatedly infused his speeches with rhetoric about protecting the middle class. For example, Obama promised over and over again that he would not raise taxes on the middle class. But that turned out to be a false promise.

The only way the Supreme Court agreed to uphold Obamacare's individual mandate was under Congress' power to tax. But Obamacare is taxing the middle class in more ways than one.

Barack Obama also promised that Obamacare would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500. Instead, as The Fiscal Times notes, "Obamacare has delivered another sucker punch to the middle class. This time it's sticker shock. …And when the family budget gets hit in the solar plexus, guess what happens to consumer spending and the economy?"

Obamacare is hitting the middle class hard in order to provide subsidized healthcare to key liberal constituencies. As many feared, the costs of Obamacare are likely to be a drag on the economy.

Meanwhile, as the law kicks into high gear, many people are finding out that they aren't actually covered. Last week, 16,000 Iowans who enrolled through the glitchy federal exchange website were told to start over again.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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