President Joseph R. Biden’s attempt to craft a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers by using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as an institutional lever to wholly bypass the legislative process and Congressional authorization has been officially held up in federal court via injunction.
Should we vaccinate the world?
From the office of Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson:
“…healthcare workers will not need to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs and that healthcare administrators will not need to implement the federal government’s vaccine policies. In enjoining the mandate, the court concluded that CMS did not have the authority to issue the mandate and that the mandate was arbitrary and capricious.”
See full press release below-
News-Release-11_29_2021Download
The following tracking information was sourced via the website of the same office:
- 11/5/21 – CMS mandate published in the Federal Register
- 12/6/21 – According to published regulation, this date is the deadline for healthcare workers to get their first shot
- 1/4/22 – According to published regulation, this date is the deadline for healthcare workers to be fully compliant with the mandate
- 11/10/21 – Nebraska and other states file lawsuit against the CMS mandate
- 11/12/21 – Nebraska and other states ask the federal court to immediately stop the CMS mandate while their case is reviewed
- 11/12/21 – Nebraska and other states ask the federal court to expedite its review of the case
- 11/17/21 – The court issued an order expediting the case that requires the federal government to respond by 11/22/21
- 11/19/21 – Attorney General provides update on lawsuit against vaccine mandate for healthcare workers
- 11/22/21 – The federal government filed its response to the lawsuit
- 11/23/21 – Nebraska and other states reply to the federal government’s argument
- 11/29/21 – The court entered an order forbidding the federal government from enforcing the CMS mandate against any “Medicare and Medicaid-Certified providers and suppliers within the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming”
- 11/5/21 – OSHA mandate published in the Federal Register
- 1/4/22 – According to published regulation, this date is the deadline for covered employers to implement the OSHA mandate
- 11/5/21 – Nebraska and other states file lawsuit against OSHA mandate with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
- 11/5/21 – Nebraska and other states ask the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately stop the OSHA mandate while their case is reviewed
- 11/6/21 – Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals enters an order temporarily stopping the OSHA mandate
- 11/12/21 – Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals enters a written opinion extending its order stopping the OSHA mandate
- 11/15/21 – Nebraska and other states file a reply brief with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of their request to immediately stop the OSHA mandate
- 11/16/21 – The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated all the legal challenges to the OSHA mandate and transferred them to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
- 11/22/21 – 27 states (including Nebraska) file a request for all active judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the case
- 11/23/21 – The federal government files a request to allow the OSHA mandate to take effect while the case proceeds
- 9/24/21 – The Safer Federal Workforce Task Force released its COVID-19 Workplace Safety: Guidance for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors
- 12/8/21 – According to published guidance, this date is the original deadline for federal contractors to implement the mandate
- 10/29/21 – Nebraska and other states file lawsuit against the federal contractor mandate
- 11/4/21 – Nebraska and other states ask the federal court to immediately stop the federal contractor mandate while their case is reviewed
- 11/9/21 – Nebraska and other states ask the federal court to expedite its review of the case
- 11/10/21 – Federal government issued revised guidance that changed the deadline for federal contractors to implement the mandate from December 8, 2021, to January 18, 2022
- 11/18/21 – Federal government filed its response to Nebraska and other states’ request to immediately stop the federal contractor mandate
- 11/22/21 – Nebraska and other states reply to the federal government’s arguments
Looking at the text of the court order itself, several reasons for the approval of the injunction become clear.
- Congress alone has the authority to issue this kind of mandate.
- Congress has not authorized a mandate.
- “Given the vast economic and political significance of this vaccine mandate, only a clear authorization from Congress would empower CMS to act.”
- This mandate would fundamentally alter the balance of federal and state power, again requiring Congressional intent.
- The delay in implementing a vaccine mandate as a response undermines the emergency argument.
- The mandate is arbitrary, broad, and vague.
- The mandate would harm the public by limiting healthcare capacities, especially in rural areas.
“The public has an interest in stopping the spread of COVID. No one disputes that. But the
Court concludes that the public would suffer little, if any, harm from maintaining the “status quo”
through the litigation of this case. Defendants argue that “enjoining the rule would harm the public
interest by further exposing Medicare and Medicaid patients and staff—and the Medicare and
Medicaid programs—to unvaccinated health care workers.” But CMS’s own
conclusions undercut this argument.
“The effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent disease transmission by those vaccinated [is] not currently known.”
Regardless, the pandemic has continued more than twenty months now. Vaccine rates rise every day, and more therapeutics and treatments for the virus are available than ever before. The status quo today, without the CMS mandate, is still far better than the public faced even just a few months ago.
And while, according to CMS, the effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent disease transmission by those vaccinated is not currently known, what is known based on the evidence before the Court is that the mandate will have a crippling effect on a significant number of healthcare facilities in Plaintiffs’ states, especially in rural areas,33 create a critical shortage of services (resulting in no medical care at all in some instances), and jeopardize the lives of
numerous vulnerable citizens. The prevalent, tangible, and irremediable impact of the mandate tips the balance of equities in favor of a preliminary injunction.” (Source: the full court order of the injunction)
In other words, Biden’s CMS has failed to prove in a court of law that these mRNA preparations do enough, or anything at all, to stop the spread of the pandemic.
Regardless of how you feel personally about vaccination, the facts, the science, still matter. The fact of the matter is there is not enough evidence that these vaccines have the potential to curb the pandemic, leaving the status-quo, as awful as it is, more empirically beneficial to the public and public interest than coercing the United States’ already over-tasked healthcare workers into taking an experimental vaccine.
The full court order, including its arguments and conclusions, can be found below:
Author’s note: Please see my upcoming article (link will be added once live) at Real Progressives regarding the nature of actual COVID-19 science in the context of the vaccines for additional information.
I'm a photographer, journalist, and activist. I've been called a "prolific writer" by Jabari Morris, co-editor in chief of Real Progressives. I focus on national politics as well as Utah current events. I enjoy weaving the historical record into my articles for allegory and reference. In addition to my work here at the Lighthouse Tribune, you can find some of my other works at Real Progressives.
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