Craft giant Hobby Lobby has figured out a way to temporarily postpone the $18.2 million in fines it owes for its refusal to comply with the Obamacare contraception mandate. By changing the beginning of its benefit plan year, the company effectively delayed the effective date of the mandate by several months, said the company’s lawyer Peter M. Dobelbower.
Dobelbower said the company will continue to “vigorously defend its religious liberty” by opposing the Obamacare mandate to provide health care coverage for abortion-inducing contraceptives, such as “morning-after” and “week-after” pills.
In late December Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice, refused to allow an emergency enforcement block of the Affordable Care Act mandate for the company to cover contraceptive methods it considers against their religious beliefs. David Green, Hobby Lobby founder and CEO, has already said, “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate … We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles.”
“I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money,” Green continued in an open letter. “But now, our government threatens to change all of that.”
Mike Huckabee, Arkansas governor who was behind the successful Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, organized a “Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day” this past weekend. Over 60,000 people committed to shop there to show their support of the craft chain.
Hobby Lobby has 500 arts and crafts stores in 41 states.
