WATB Freakazoids Demand Women Stand on Heads and Stack Greasy BBs to Get Birth Control

Seriously, if Slow Anthony fails to see the vicious arrogance in this response, then we might as well give up and welcome our new Dominionist overlords.

From TPM:

The court's surprise order asked for briefing on alternative workarounds for how "contraceptive coverage may be obtained by petitioners’ employees through petitioners’ insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.” The order also outlined an example scenario in which an employer would inform its insurer from the get-go not to include contraceptives in the plan's coverage and then insurer would notify the employee that contraceptive coverage was being offered to her cost-free, outside of the employer plan.

The challengers, in a brief filed Tuesday, pushed back at that suggestion, arguing that the accommodation would still need to amount to "a separate plan, with a separate enrollment process, a separate insurance card, and a separate payment source, and offered to eligible individuals through a separate communication."

They said that the plans would need to be "truly separate contraceptive-only policies," that would also be available for employees with church plans or self-insured plans to enroll in. The crux of their argument was that the employees would need to opt in to coverage, rather then requiring employers to opt out.

"Again, these separate plans could take the form of individual insurance policies or group health plans sponsored by the government," the brief said. "But either way, the insurance companies could separately contact petitioners’ employees and give them the option of enrolling in the separate, contraceptive-only policy." 

The example scenario the challengers' brief offered was that insurance cards would bear a phone number -- akin to credit card activation codes -- that female employees could call to enroll in a second, contraceptive-only plan.

But the challengers didn't stop there.

They also said that they would prefer that the insurer not even inform the employees that they would need to get coverage through a separate program, lest it give "the appearance that the coverage is available only as a result of the employment relationship with the employer." 

Instead, the challengers argued, it would be better if the government or healthcare providers informed women they would need to enroll in a separate plan.

Furthermore, they stressed that the religious organizations did not "endorse such an approach as a policy matter," nor would they endorse the previous alternatives they offered, which mostly came down to the government providing the contraceptive coverage on its own, either directly or by funding outside programs.

As my dear sainted Irish mother would say: "Do you want egg in your beer, too?"