WASHINGTON — The immediate political reaction to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision Monday was as you’d expect: Republicans like Rep. Michele Bachmann praised the ruling as a win for religious liberties, while Democrats from Sen. Al Franken on down slammed it as anti-women’s health.

The decision gave religiously minded private business owners an out if they object to providing contraception coverage under company health insurance plans. But it also suggested different ways regulators or lawmakers could provide coverage for contraception to affected women.

The question right now is how that might happen.

The court offered up a few ideas of its own. Writing for the court in a 5-4 decision [PDF], Justice Samuel Alito said the government could take up the task of paying for contraception coverage, or regulators could carve out an exemption for closely held companies like it did for religious nonprofits last year. Under that exemption, health care plans provide contraception to their beneficiaries at no cost to the companies offering the plans.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama, while opposing the court’s ruling, would prefer asking Congress to write a legislative response.

“It is our view that Congress needs to take action to solve this problem that’s been created, and the administration stands ready to work with them to do so,” Earnest said.

That’s an unlikely path forward, though, especially if the administration hopes to follow the government-funded contraception route. Given that most Republicans still oppose the health care law, it’s hard to imagine the GOP-controlled House signing off on an Obamacare expansion. And, as Alito noted in his opinion, no one knows what the final cost will be, since the government hasn’t even calculated how many women will be lacking contraception coverage post-Hobby Lobby.

Dorsey and Whitney health care lawyer Tim Goodman said it’s unlikely the administration would try expanding government-funded contraception on its own.

“I’m not sure how far agencies think they can go,” he said. “Any time there’s a cost you have to get that funded by Congress.”

But combine new Obamacare regulations with a still unknown price point, and add the fact there are a dwindling number of congressional work days between now and November’s elections, and there’s next to no chance lawmakers will move forward with a legislative response any time soon.

Administration could rewrite regulations

With Congress out of the picture, that probably leaves some type of administrative fix.

Legal analysts suggested Monday that the Obama administration could rewrite contraception regulations for companies affected by Hobby Lobby on its own, and relatively quickly, and the court seemed not to mind a rewrite of the rules, either.

“HHS [Health and Human Services] itself has demonstrated that it has at its disposal an approach that is less restrictive than requiring employers to fund contraceptive methods that violate their religious beliefs,” Alito wrote. “HHS has already established an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious objections.”

Last year, the administration released rules allowing religious nonprofits to opt out of paying for contraceptive coverage through their health care plans. The nonprofit’s health care provider would then provide the coverage on its own, at no additional cost to employees.

It took the government more than three years to write that regulation, but Goodman said regulators could theoretically have the new rules finalized as soon as the end of the year.

“If the agencies decided that might be the correct approach to apply more broadly, they already have the framework in place,” he said.

Of course, depending on how the exemption is administered, it could run into legal challenges of its own. A nonprofit from Colorado challenged the mechanism by which it applies for the exemption last year, arguing that the paperwork required to apply for the exemption makes it “a party to the mandate.”

Congressional response

Many legal analysts have said Monday’s court ruling has a relatively narrow practical impact. It affects only closely held (usually family-owned) companies who object to offering employees contraception on religious grounds. Hobby Lobby’s complaint also dealt with just four of the 20 contraceptive methods mandated for coverage under the ACA. The court dismissed — at least for now —  potential religious objections to other coverage mandates such as vaccinations or blood transfusions, though Goodman said the ruling will probably mean eventual challenges to those mandates as well.

In a statement after the decision, Bachmann said he was “extremely encouraged” by the court’s decision.

“At its core, today’s decision was about the right of individual and family business owners to be free from government mandates that force them to deny their sincerely-held religious beliefs,” she said. “America was founded on the principle of religious freedom, and there is nothing more fundamental than the First Amendment.”

Franken, who is up for re-election this year, said he was “very disappointed” in the decision and said, “A woman’s boss should never be the one to make health care decisions for her — these decisions should be between a woman and her doctor.”

Rep. Betty McCollum called it “an attack on the rights of women and sets a dangerous new standard for corporate personhood.”

Precedent for other cases

Hobby Lobby will serve as precedent for scores of lawsuits nationally against the contraception mandate, including several from Minnesota. 

“This a big victory for sincere religious objectors to the HHS mandate,” said Erick Kaardal, a Minneapolis attorney representing seven different companies in their lawsuits.

Kaardal’s clients included companies ranging from manufacturers to investment firms with workforces from 10 to 70 employees, all of which are closely held companies run by Catholics. All of the cases — including one from Minnetonka-based Annex Medical, which argued against the mandate in a federal court in October — will be analyzed and decided in the context of the Hobby Lobby decision. 

Kaardal couldn’t say how his clients would react to a new contraception coverage program like the nonprofit exemption — their concerns over the contraception mandate are guided more by the Catholic church’s teaching rather than the nuances of health care policy, he said. 

Either way, “the little people won this time,” he said. “For very, very few people, this is a really important decision.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry