Watanabe

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 Foothill Church, et al., No. 2:15-CV-02165-KJM-EFB Plaintiffs, ORDER v. Mary Watanabe, in her official capacity as Director of the California Department of Managed Healthcare, 16 Defendant. 17 From one vantage point, this case involves a dispute about whether the agency regulating 19 insurance plans in California must consider religious exemption requests from individual 20 enrollees and subscribers if the agency’s ordinary practice is to consider requests from health insurance plans. Alternatively, the dispute centers on whether the agency can order insurance 22 plans to cover abortions, even insurance plans who sell coverage to religious employers that 23 oppose abortion except when the life, not the health, of a pregnant woman is at risk. Regardless, 24 the complexity of the case warrants a bird’s-eye review of the facts. In August 2014, the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC or the State) 26…