Judge blocks federal vaccination order for health care workers

A federal judge on Monday blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing a Coronavirus vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states, including Alaska, that had brought the first legal challenge against the requirement.

The court order said the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for providers participating in the two government health care programs for the elderly, disabled and poor.

The injunction does not apply to several hospitals across Alaska that decided on their own this summer and fall to require that employees must be vaccinated. That list includes the state’s largest hospitals in Anchorage, SEARHC and its hospitals and clinics throughout Southeast, including Wrangell.

The preliminary injunction by St. Louis-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp applies to a coalition of states that includes Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. All those states have either a Republican attorney general or governor. Similar lawsuits are pending in other states.

The federal rule requires COVID-19 vaccinations for more than 17 million workers nationwide in about 76,000 health care facilities and home health care providers that get funding from the government health programs. Workers are to receive their first dose by next Monday and their second shot by Jan. 4.

The court order against the health care vaccine mandate comes after Biden’s administration suffered a similar setback for a broader policy. A federal court previously placed a hold on a separate rule requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers get vaccinated or else wear masks and get tested weekly for the Coronavirus.

The judge in the health care provider case wrote that federal officials likely overstepped their legal powers.

While a vaccine requirement might make sense for long-term care facilities, Schelp wrote, the federal agency lacks evidence for imposing it on other health care providers and ignored evidence that the mandate could jeopardize understaffed facilities.