By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A state senator today questioned why the Kansas Attorney General supports a lawsuit challenging provisions in the Affordable Care Act that require company health insurance plans to cover contraceptives.
The lawsuit, filed by Hobby Lobby, will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court later this month.
Kansas is one of the 18 states where attorneys general have filed briefs in support of the national retailer.
Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, said she found it odd that Kansas, a state well-known for its opposition to abortion, would defending a company that relies on China for “90 to 95 percent” of its merchandise given that China relies heavily on abortion to enforce limits on family size.
“How we defend a company that says ‘We don’t want to provide birth control methods for our insured employees,’ and yet still compartmentalize things to a point where they can, absolutely, do most of their business with a country that not only allows abortions but actually requires and promotes them?” Kelly said during an informational hearing held by the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee.
The hearing focused on Kansas’ role in the various legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
Jeff Chanay, head of the civil litigation division at the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, said the decision to join the case was driven by broad legal concerns about the Affordable Care Act rather the defense of a particular company.
Kelly has been a supporter of abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act.
After the hearing, Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, the Shawnee Republican who chairs the committee, called Kelly’s concern “a red herring,” noting the hearing was meant to address a “more important” principal.
“We’re talking about freedom, freedom of speech,” she told reporters. “We’re talking about things we have held very precious in our country for many, many years. That’s what some of these lawsuits are about.”
Pilcher-Cook opposes abortion and the Affordable Care Act.
Earlier, Chanay said he thought provisions in the federal health reform law commonly referred to as Obamacare were the subject of “probably more than 150 different lawsuits around the country.”
The issues raised in the suits, he said, fall into five general categories:
• Whether employers who object to birth control can be forced to cover contraceptive devices and procedures in their health insurance plans;
• Whether the proposed creation of an Independent Payment Advisory Board for enacting policies meant to control Medicare and Medicaid costs is constitutional since all its 15 members are to be appointed by the president;
• Whether the taxing provisions in the Affordable Care Act, first introduced in the House of Representatives, violate laws that require taxing measures to originate in the Senate;
• Whether the act’s coverage requirements apply to members of Congress and their staff members;
• Whether businesses in states that chose against setting up health insurance exchangess are subject to the employer mandates in the Affordable Care Act.
Chanay said his office had taken the lead in filing a brief in a case, Halbig v. Sebelius, that challenges the IRS ability to withhold tax credits to companies in states that chose not to start health insurance exchanges.
One Kansas company, Community National Bank in Seneca, is a plaintiff in the case, he said, noting that the attorneys general of Nebraska and Michigan also had supported the brief.
Halbig v. Sebelius is scheduled for oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on March 25.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt did not attend the hearing.
Prior to the hearing, Sen. David Haley, a Democrat from Kansas City, handed out a prepared statement, letting committee members and reporters know that he had decided to boycott the meeting.
“Nothing has happened that appears to be able to overturn a federal law, passed by a majority of Congress and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, that has begun to connect millions of Americans to health care insurance security,” he wrote. “It is doubtful that will ever change, Get over it. Move on. It is regrettable that the committee’s time and taxpayers’ dollars are wasted beyond that simple truth.”