Recently, around ten states had challenged Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate laws for healthcare workers.
Yesterday, a federal court delivered a huge win in this case. Biden’s bill required all private healthcare workers and facilities that receive government medicare to be vaccinated. Judge Matthew Schelp sided with the 10 states and added an injunction to this case:
“The Biden administration issued the vaccine mandate, for health-care workers at facilities that received funding from Medicare and Medicaid, in early November through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It was estimated to apply to some 1.7 million workers at 76,000 facilities across the country, including hospitals and nursing homes.
But in a 32-page ruling issued on Monday in St. Louis, U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said that a preliminary injunction to halt the rule was warranted because he believed the arguments made by the plaintiffs — 10 mostly Republican-dominated states — that the CMS lacked authority to implement the requirement, probably had merit.
He also questioned whether there was enough data about transmissibility and vaccination status, and he said that he believed the order was probably “arbitrary and capricious.”
“Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact this politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate, which Supreme Court precedent requires,” he wrote.
The order will halt the CMS vaccine mandate in the 10 states that brought the lawsuit until the court can hear their legal challenges. They are Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.” He wrote.
“First, Congress must “speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of ‘vast economic and political significance.’” Ala. Ass’n of Realtors, 141 S. Ct. at 2489 (quoting Util. Air Reg., 573 U.S. at 324). The mandate’s economic cost is overwhelming. CMS estimates that compliance with the Mandate—just in the first year—is around 1.38 billion dollars. 86 Fed. Reg. at 61,613. Those costs, though, do not take into account the economic significance this mandate has from the effects on facilities closing or limiting services and a significant exodus of employees that choose not to receive a vaccination.6 Likewise, the political significance of a mandatory coronavirus vaccine is hard to understate, especially when forced by the heavy hand of the federal government. Indeed, it would be difficult to identify many other issues that currently have more political significance at this time. Had Congress wished to assign this question fraught with deep economic and political significance to CMS, “it surely would have done so expressly.” See King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473, 486 (2015). “It is especially unlikely that Congress would have delegated this decision to [CMS], which has no expertise in crafting” vaccine mandates.” He added.
What do you make of this yet another Biden loss in a Federal Court? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
The vaccine mandate is a farce! Biden cannot dictate that anyone who isn’t vaccinated cannot work. The vaccine isn’t even passed by FDA! Long term effects not known, sterility in females discovered, unknown in males (to me). Vax don’t prevent contraction of the virus, nor does it stop the spread.