Missouri federal judge on Monday temporarily blocks Biden admin’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers in 10 states.
QUICK FACTS:
- U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp granted a preliminary injunction barring the Biden administration from enforcing the mandate while litigation continues in the case filed by a coalition of 10 state attorneys general, Washington Times reports.
- Schlep said the “vast economic and political significance” of the mandate, which requires vaccines at all healthcare facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid, means Congress should authorize the rule, as well as because the requirement “overtake[s] an area of traditional state authority,” Forbes notes.
- The mandate is paused in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
- Judge Schelp, a Trump-appointee, ruled that the administration did not have the authority to issue the mandate requiring health care workers employed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to be vaccinated by Jan 4.
- “Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact this politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate, which Supreme Court precedent requires,” Judge Schelp wrote.
- “No one questions that protecting patients and healthcare workers from contracting COVID is a laudable objective,” Schlep added. “But the Court cannot, in good faith, allow CMS to enact an unprecedented mandate that lacks a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.'”
