Important to the majority's decision is its reading of a provision of the Internal Revenue Code which many have seen as imposing a $100 per day excise tax on a small employer that chooses voluntarily to provide its employees health insurance, but insurance that not cover contraceptive services. The court concludes that 26 USC Sec. 4980D(d) precludes penalizing the company if it offers insurance from a health insurer which is inconsistent with the contraceptive mandate.
The company complains however that no insurance company will write a policy that excludes contraceptive coverage because federal law prohibits the insurance company from doing so. The majority writes:
The standing problem is the pleadings and record contain no indication any Minnesota health insurer is willing, but for the mandate, to sell a plan allowing a small employer such as Annex to prohibit coverage for a handful of healthcare products and services....
Based on the pleadings and sparse record before us, we can only speculate whether Annex’s difficulties obtaining contraceptive-free insurance are (1) caused by the government defendants as opposed to the independent decisions of third-party insurers, and (2) redressable by the remedy available to Annex: a permanent version of the preliminary injunction Annex already received and which failed to redress Annex’s alleged injury.Judge Colloton, concurring, argues that Annex has standing:
it should be evident that a market to serve Annex Medical is likely to develop if the requested relief is granted. It is unsurprising that insurers were not prepared to write policies for Annex Medical and submit them to state regulators for approval based on a temporary injunction pending appeal of indefinite duration while the law was unsettled. But the complaint seeks permanent injunctive and declaratory relief that the government cannot forbid the issuance of the group plan that Annex Medical wants to purchase.[Thanks to Stephen Blakeman for the lead.]
