WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama's healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans. She gave the Obama administration until Friday to respond to the Supreme Court. And last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a pair of cases on whether corporations may refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraception. The administration says it has exempted churches from the contraceptive coverage requirement and offered an accommodation to certain religious nonprofit groups. In late November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear several cases that could settle the dispute between the Obama administration and businesses run by Christian conservatives over whether those companies must pay for birth control if providing that coverage is in conflict with the religious beliefs of the business owner.
– Before dropping the ball in Times Square, Sonia Sotomayor dropped yet another problem on ObamaCare, many key provisions of which kick in today. The Supreme Court justice granted a last-minute temporary exemption to a group of Catholic nuns who object to providing contraceptive coverage for employees, reports the Los Angeles Times. The government has been given until Friday to file a response in the case, which applies to the nuns and other Roman Catholic nonprofit groups using the same health plan. Lawyers for the nuns argued that they would face "draconian fines" if they didn't start complying with the law today. Churches have been exempted from providing contraceptive coverage, but the nuns' suit is among several from religious organizations and private corporations who are also pressing for exemptions, NBC notes. The Justice Department says that to opt out, all the nuns need to do is "certify that they are nonprofit organizations that hold themselves out as religious," though the group representing the nuns says ObamaCare rules still require them to violate their beliefs by dealing with an insurer covering "sterilization, contraceptive and abortion-inducing drugs and devices," the New York Times finds.