Another Hit: Biden Vaccine Mandate Blocked For Health Workers In 10 States

Amanda PrestigiacomoNovember 30, 2021

A federal court struck another blow to President Joe Biden on Monday, blocking the president’s vaccine mandate on health care workers in 10 states.

“The scale falls clearly in favor of healthcare facilities operating with some unvaccinated employees, staff, trainees, students, volunteers and contractors, rather than the swift, irremediable impact of requiring healthcare facilities to choose between two undesirable choices — providing substandard care or providing no healthcare at all,” read an order from U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp, according to Fox News.

“Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact this politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate, which Supreme Court precedent requires,” Schelp wrote.

Biden’s vaccine mandate applies to health workers in hospitals that receive federal funding through Medicaid or Medicare, Fox noted.

Following suit from the 10 states, the Biden mandate is now halted in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Trying to reverse another block to his dictate, Biden last week filed an order to lift a stay on his federal vaccine and testing mandate for private businesses. The Daily Wire reported:

The Fifth Circuit stayed the Biden administration mandate days after it went into effect, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” The entire case was later consolidated in the Sixth Circuit, where The Daily Wire was first to file a legal challenge against the federal order, effectively making The Daily Wire the lead plaintiff in the case.

[…] The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday requesting a stay on its November 4 COVID-19 order be lifted.

Joined by over a dozen cosigners, The Daily Wire has since filed a response to the DOJ:

“Just two days before Thanksgiving, the government seeks to unleash procedural chaos on the Court, the petitioners, and over 80 million individuals before the Court has even ruled on the en banc petitions or issued a comprehensive case management order,” The Daily Wire’s filing said. “And the government has done so by filing what is effectively a merits brief, with nearly 13,000 words, masquerading as an emergency motion.”

[…] “Indeed, the government’s request is nothing short of extraordinary. It asks this Court, in an emergency posture, to summarily dispense with a sister circuit’s cogent and carefully calibrated stay orders,” the filing continued, adding that the arguments the DOJ made in favor of lifting the stay had already been addressed by the court.

“The government asks this Court to disregard the Fifth Circuit’s order, after it had the full and fair opportunity to submit not one, but two responses to the court on November 8, 2021 and on November 10, 2021,” the filing said. “Needlessly rushing the Court to a decision in a compressed timeline is not the proper way to revisit a decision of a sister circuit, which has been entrusted to this Court’s care.”

The Daily Wire also said that the government’s request aims to “create procedural chaos” by skipping ahead of necessary procedural rulings and orders in the case.

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