经济学人下载:好必来 信不信由你

Hobby Lobby
好必来

Believe it or not
信不信由你

The Supreme Court sides with religious firms against Obamacare
最高法院支持宗教性质公司反对奥巴马医改

TWO years ago the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. A decision on June 30th was less favourable. The Court allowed an exception to Obamacare's mandate that firms above a certain size offer their staff insurance that includes free contraception. Rarely has a decision provoked such controversy. Hillary Clinton called it “deeply disturbing” , though her husband signed the law that underpins it.
两年前最高法院支持平价医疗法案，也就是广为人知的奥巴马医改。6月30号的一个决议不是那么顺利。奥巴马医改要求一定规模以上的公司需要给员工提供包括免费避孕在内的保险，而法院允许了一项例外情况。很少有某项决议能引起如此激烈的论战。希拉里·克林顿称它“让人非常困扰”，尽管她的丈夫签署了支持它的法律。

The case, Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc, was brought by two Christian families and their businesses. The Greens own Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft shops, and Mardel, a Christian bookstore; the Hahns own Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinetmaker. Obamacare requires firms to offer their workers all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Greens and Hahns believe that four of those contraceptives, including the “morning-after pill”, are abortifacients, since they may keep a fertilised egg from implanting in the uterine wall.
伯韦尔好必来有限公司的案例是由两个基督教家庭和他们的生意引发的。格林家族拥有好必来连锁工艺品店，和马代尔基督教书店；哈恩家族拥有康那斯多格木材专家家具制造。奥巴马医改要求公司为他们员工提供食品和药物管理局批准的所有避孕用品。格林家族和哈恩家族认为这些避孕用品的中的四种，包括“事后避孕药”是堕胎药，因为它们会导致受精卵不能进入子宫壁。

The issue was not whether these highly debatable beliefs are valid, but the circumstances under which a religious objection may trump a federal law. The constitution protects the right to the “free exercise” of religion. A 1993 law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, further requires that the government “shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion” unless doing so is the least restrictive way to advance a compelling government interest. By five votes to four, the court ruled that obliging closely held firms with religious owners to pay for their employees' contraceptives violates that principle.
问题不是这些具有高度争议性的信仰是否有效，而是宗教异议可能会胜过联邦法律这种情况。宪法保护宗教“自由活动”的权利。1993年的一部法律宗教自由恢复法案进一步要求政府“实质上不应该干扰某个人的宗教活动”，除非这是促进强力政府利益约束最少的方法。法院以五对四的票数进行了裁决，认为强制有信仰宗教所有者的寡头控股公司为他们的员工支付避孕用品违反了该原则。

The government had argued that Hobby Lobby could not claim to have religious beliefs because it is a for-profit corporation. “While the Greens are persons who exercise religion, there is a critical separation between the Greens and the corporation they have elected to create,” the government's lawyers insisted. A company has rights and obligations that differ from those of its owners. That includes being subject to Obamacare's employer mandate, they argued.
政府争辩说好必来不能要求有宗教信仰，因为他是一个以营利为目的的公司。“虽然格林家族是信仰宗教的家族，但他们家族和他们创建的公司之间有着很重要的区别，”政府的律师团坚称。公司有权利也有义务将这些与他们的所有者们区分开来。这包括服从奥巴马医改的雇主支付令，他们争辩说。

The court's conservative justices disagreed. “Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control these companies,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito. If Hobby Lobby refused to cover the four contraceptives, it faced fines of up to 475m a year, which Mr Alito said clearly counted as a “substantial burden”. And the government had other, less onerous ways to provide contraception, he argued. For example, it could pay for contraception itself or include for-profit companies in an “accommodation” already made for non-profit religious organisations, such as Catholic universities. Under that accommodation, insurers cover the cost of contraception, without raising prices for employers or their workers.
法院的保守派法官们不同意这种说法。“保护像好必来、康纳斯多格和马代尔这种公司的宗教自由权就是保护拥有及管控这些公司的所有人的宗教自由，”法官塞缪尔·阿利托写道。如果好必来拒绝覆盖这四种避孕用品，它将面临一年4.75亿美元的罚款，而阿利托很明确地将其看做是一个“巨大的负担”。政府有其它不那么麻烦的方法来提供避孕用品，他争辩说。例如，它可以自己支付避孕用品或者将以营利为目的的公司包括进一个为非盈利宗教团体如天主教大学建立的“膳宿”体制中。在这种“膳宿”体制下，保险公司承担避孕用品的费用，不用增加雇主或者员工的费用。

Mr Alito insisted that the ruling was a narrow one, applying only to closely held firms under very specific circumstances. It is unclear how the government will now ensure that women with religious employers obtain free contraception. The “accommodation” may not be viable; its legality is being challenged by separate suits. Some women may have to pay for their own contraceptives.
阿利托坚称该裁决很狭隘，仅适用于特殊情况下的寡头控股公司。政府如今是如何确保有宗教信仰的雇主雇佣的妇女获得免费避孕用品尚未明确。“膳宿”体制并不可行；它的合法性受到了单独讼案的挑战。一些妇女不得不自己支付避孕用品。

The ruling could make it harder to enforce the Obamacare mandate that employers offer health insurance. Many firms are “closely held”, including some that employ tens of thousands of workers. These companies may now seek exemptions from other parts of the mandate.
该裁决会使奥巴马医改所要求的雇主提供健康保险的实施变得更加困难。许多公司都是“寡头控股”，包括一些雇佣了数以万计员工的公司。这些公司如今可能会寻求该命令其它部分的豁免。

On July 1st the Supreme Court ordered lower courts to revisit objections to a broader set of contraceptives, in addition to the four raised by Hobby Lobby. In future, companies might challenge Obamacare's mandate to cover immunisations, blood transfusions or medicines derived from pigs, though none has yet done so. In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the decision was of “startling breadth”. Companies, she wrote, “can opt out of any law they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
最高法院于7月1号命令低级法院重温对更广范围内避孕物品的异议，除了好必来提出的四种物品。未来公司可能会挑战奥巴马医改对于覆盖免疫法、输血或来源于猪的药物的命令，尽管这些都尚未实行。而法官露丝·金斯伯格对此抱有异议，称该决定“幅度之广令人吃惊”。公司，她写道，“可以决定不遵守除了税法之外的任何法律，只要他们认为这与他们虔诚持有的宗教信仰互不相容。”