Friday, President Joe Biden’s health care worker COVID-19 vaccine mandate was met with a new legal challenge as Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an amended complaint against the administration’s edict.
Marshall’s lawsuit aims to block the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from implementing the vaccine rule, which would apply to health care workers who are employed at providers that receive CMS funding.
Should the Biden administration move forward with its enforcement of the mandate, the affected health care workers would be have to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by February 14 or be terminated from their job.
The U.S. Supreme Court on January 13 upheld the CMS vaccine mandate in a 5-4 decision. However, Marshall contended that circumstances had changed surrounding the ongoing pandemic that could support the State of Alabama’s amended complaint against the rule.
“Biden’s overall scheme to federalize vaccination policy and force vaccines on the American people has been left in shambles by defeat after defeat in the courts, and I am proud to have been a part of those victories,” stated Marshall. “While his healthcare-worker vaccine mandate has survived certain challenges on appeal, new facts and additional legal infirmities render this mandate too unlawful.”
The attorney general added, “Circumstances have dramatically changed since the healthcare-worker vaccine mandate was originally issued. The mandate was promulgated in response to the Delta variant, which now accounts for only 0.1 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the United States. But research suggests that COVID-19 vaccines do little to stop the transmission of the predominant strain today—the Omicron variant, which accounts for 99.9 percent of all cases—which undermines the premise for forcing people to submit to them.”
Marshall cited data published by the AARP Public Policy Institute which shows that nursing home and long-term care facilities are presently facing the most severe shortage of nurses and aides since the government began tracking related data in May 2020.
“Furthermore, this unlawful mandate is causing havoc in the healthcare labor market across the nation—especially in rural communities—and does not account for the pandemic’s changing circumstances,” continued Marshall. “I have joined with 15 other attorneys general in filing an amended complaint to seek an end to Biden’s unnecessary and un-American healthcare-worker vaccine mandate.”
Alabama’s chief law enforcement officer also asserted that Biden’s CMS decree stood in violation of numerous constitutional provisions and longstanding legal doctrine.
Marshall joined attorneys general from Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia in filing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
