Wednesday, a Texas judge found that a section of the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to offer health insurance that includes HIV-preventative medications violates the religious freedom of a Christian-owned firm.
Reed O’Connor’s decision centers on Braidwood Management, a Christian for-profit firm headed by Steven Hotze, and its claims that its rights were violated by the mandate of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In the center of the decision are pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pills, which, according to research, minimize the chance of obtaining HIV from sexual activity by almost 99 percent. However, Hotze, whose company offers health insurance to approximately 70 employees, said that providing coverage for PrEP medications encouraged “gay activity” and violated “his religious beliefs by making him complicit in supporting those activities.”
O’Connor noted in the case, “Braidwood has demonstrated that the PrEP mandate substantially impairs its religious activity.”
He said that the defendants, including the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, failed to demonstrate that the PrEP mandate, when applied to companies like Braidwood, can significantly prevent the transmission of HIV. The organization did not reply immediately to a request for comment.
Uncertain is the ruling’s potential impact on other firms that supply ACA-compliant health care to their employees, despite the fact that other companies have successfully argued they should be permitted to deny coverage of preventative health care due to religious concerns.
There are currently three FDA-approved PrEP medications, including Truvada and Descovy, which are both made by Gilead Sciences.
In 2012, for instance, the owners of the arts and crafts store Hobby Lobby filed a lawsuit objecting to giving employee health care coverage for certain forms of contraception based on their Christian religion. In 2014, the Supreme Court decided in their favor, letting the corporation and other private companies to circumvent an Obamacare need to provide birth control if doing so violates their religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.