The Supreme Court Is Hearing Arguments Challenging Vaccine Mandates

The Supreme Court Is Hearing Arguments Challenging Vaccine Mandates (1)

On Friday, the United States Supreme Court will hear yet another high-stakes case: The justices are hearing accelerated arguments in two significant Biden administration regulations aimed at expanding the number of immunized workers in a special session.

Although the lawsuits are still in the early stages, the court’s decision will almost probably influence how these issues are resolved in the end.

On the one hand, the Biden administration is attempting to speed up vaccines by imposing mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers and mandate-or-test requirements for most of the private sector employees, despite a new wave of COVID-19 infections sweeping the country.

All of this will take place in front of a Supreme Court that has had all of its justices vaccinated and boosted, in a nearly empty room with just reporters, counsel, and court employees in attendance, and in a facility that is closed to the public to safeguard those who work there.

The debate on Friday revolves around two new government rules enacted to combat the disease. One has been issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which applies to all enterprises with 100 or more employees. This equates to almost two-thirds of the workforce in the private sector. It requires all employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly, and those who have not been immunized to wear masks. The only exceptions are those who work from home or outside. The rule is being challenged by a coalition of large and small business groups, 27 states, and individuals.

Brandon Trosclair, the owner of 15 grocery stores in Louisiana, is one of them.

In a video created by the conservative Liberty Justice Center, which represents him, he stated, “The problem here is the mandate itself.” “It throws a gap between my employees and me because I have to force them to pick whether or not they want to be vaccinated, or I may have to fire them. The other alternative is to conduct many tests, “which is expensive, as opposed to the vaccine, which is free.

The second regulation under investigation, issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requires vaccines for all staff working in federally funded hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities. Medical or religious reasons are the only exceptions.

Those opposing the CMS rule claim that millions of healthcare workers will quit rather than comply with the requirement. However, the Biden administration points to research that suggests that vaccine mandates have resulted in fewer than 1% of healthcare personnel quitting their professions. When the Houston Methodist Hospital system implemented a vaccine compulsion, just 153 employees out of over 61,000 chose to resign rather than comply.

The mandate for healthcare providers is generally thought to be the easier of the two rules to defend before the Supreme Court because courts have long held that when the federal government funds a program—such as Medicare or Medicaid—it has the authority to impose conditions on how the money is spent to ensure that it is spent wisely and efficiently, and not to expose patients to greater risks.

“We’re paying for people to undergo dialysis treatment, and we don’t want the result of our funding their dialysis treatment to be that they get COVID,” says Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, summarizing the government’s viewpoint.

The OSHA rule differs from the CMS rule in that it was imposed under Congress‘ ability to regulate interstate commerce rather than Congress’ spending power, which is a target of many current court conservatives. The OSHA regulation, on the other hand, was established under wide legislation that permits the agency to issue emergency rules if it deems them “essential” to safeguard employees from “grave danger.” Furthermore, OSHA has already used its rulemaking authority to address diseases like HIV and hepatitis, requiring employers to cover the cost of the hepatitis-B vaccine for at-risk workers. It has never, however, adopted a vaccine-or-test requirement like this one.

More than half of the states, almost all of which are Republican-dominated, are among the challengers, including a dozen that have declared vaccination mandates illegal. They claim that the regulation goes beyond what Congress meant when it passed the OSHA statute and that it would be unlawful if Congress did intend to give the agency such extensive rulemaking authority. They claim that because of the rule’s “huge economic and political significance,” Congress would have to expressly sanction a vaccine-or-test mandate.

The Biden administration maintains that it was required to respond under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. After all, COVID-19 has already killed over 800,000 individuals in the US and harmed 50 million more, with many suffering long-term consequences.

“I believe this is a case that will demonstrate whether this court is actually radical or conservative,” says Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus. “The concern is whether the Supreme Court will attempt to completely overturn our national government’s ability to protect the nation’s health and safety in the face of a global pandemic sweeping the country.”

Professor Adler, on the other hand, believes that these issues could be determined on narrow statutory grounds, based on what the statutes say and how the agencies justify their activities. “If we hear a lot of questions about the breadth of the government’s constitutional power, that suggests the justices see this case as a wedge into wider problems about the federal administrative state,” he says.

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Also, Read Washington State Sen. Doug Ericksen Dies; Sought Treatment For COVID

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