A federal judge in Missouri has suspended the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate in 10 states that filed a suit contesting the rules. The decision follows a similar action pertaining to vaccine requirements from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Plaintiffs in the case include the States of Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire. Nine are Republican-dominated states. New Hampshire is a swing state that has favored Democrats in the most recent federal elections but currently has a Republican governor, Chris Sununu.
“While the Court agrees Congress has authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services general authority to enact regulations for the ‘administration’ of Medicare and Medicaid and the ‘health and safety’ of recipients, the nature and breadth of the CMS mandate requires clear authorization from Congress — and Congress has provided none,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp wrote.
The suit names agencies and individuals as defendants, including the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and its Secretary Xavier Becerra, CMS and its administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS Deputy Administrators Meena Seshamani and Daniel Tsai, as well as President Joseph Biden.
The judge agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the power to impose vaccine mandates should lie with the states.
“The CMS vaccine mandate threatens with job loss millions of health care workers who risked their lives in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to care for strangers and friends in their communities,” the states indicated in their complaint. “Critically, the CMS vaccine mandate also threatens to exacerbate an alarming shortage of health care workers, particularly in rural communities, that has already reached a boiling point.”
The CMS rule applies to all health care providers, regardless of company size. The requirements apply to any staff who provide any care, treatment or services for the health care organization or its patients, including new and current employees as well as those under contract or other arrangement, regardless of clinical responsibility or patient contact. The rule is also applicable to staff that primarily provide services remotely that occasionally encounter fellow staff or enter a care setting.
Health care employers must implement a policy requiring staff to receive the first vaccine dose prior to providing care, treatment or services by Dec. 5. All eligible staff must have received the necessary shots to be fully vaccinated – either two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson – by Jan. 4, 2022. Unlike OSHA, CMS did not offer a testing option for the unvaccinated.
The Biden Administration has indicated that the government is prepared to fight out these issues in the courts.
“The president and the administration wouldn’t have put these requirements in place if they didn’t think that they were appropriate and necessary, and the administration is certainly prepared to defend them,” Vivek Murthy, M.D., the U.S. surgeon general, recently said on ABC’s “This Week.”
