America’s Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its sweeping vaccine-or-test requirements for large private companies, but has given the green light for a vaccine mandate to stand for medical facilities accepting Medicare or Medicaid payments.
CNBC reports last Thursday’s rulings (13 January) as coming three days after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency measure for businesses started to take effect.
The mandate required that workers at businesses with 100 or more staff either get vaccinated or submit a negative weekly COVID test to enter the workplace. It also required unvaccinated workers to wear masks indoors at work.
“Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.
“Requiring the vaccination of 84m Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 staff, certainly falls in the latter category,” it added.
Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, writing that the majority has usurped the power of Congress, the president and OSHA without legal basis.
“In the face of a still-raging pandemic, this Court tells the agency charged with protecting worker safety that it may not do so in all the workplaces needed,” they said in their dissent.
“As disease and death continue to mount, this Court tells the agency that it cannot respond in the most effective way possible. Without legal basis, the Court usurps a decision that rightfully belongs to others. It undercuts the capacity of the responsible federal officials, acting well within the scope of their authority, to protect American workers from grave danger,” they wrote.
President Joe Biden, in a statement, said the Supreme Court chose to block requirements that are lifesaving for workers. He called on states and businesses to voluntarily institute vaccination requirements to protect workers, customers and the broader community.
The American Medical Association, one of the largest doctors’ groups in the nation, said it was “deeply disappointed”, added CBNC.
“In the face of a continually evolving COVID-19 pandemic that poses a serious danger to the health of our nation, the Supreme Court has halted one of the most effective tools in the fight against further transmission and death from this aggressive virus,” AMA President Gerald Harmon said.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
US federal appeals court stays Biden’s mandatory vaccine policy
US Supreme Court again rejects religious challenge to vaccine mandate
Court rules Biden vaccine mandate ‘fatally flawed’ and ‘staggeringly over-broad’