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Sean D. Reyes
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Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers Before U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, the United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the lawsuit to stop the federal government’s attempt to force COVID-19 vaccines on health care workers. Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, Solicitor General Mellissa Holyoak, and former Solicitor General Tyler Green are all part of the team responsible for legal briefs and preparing for the oral argument in opposition to the vaccine mandates.

“We hope all our work for Utahns in encouraging vaccines but resisting unconstitutional vaccine mandates results in a stay after today’s arguments and later in the high court striking down these mandates,” said Attorney General Reyes.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to issue a stay of the injunctions issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana blocking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule that requires all healthcare workers at facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they are eligible for medical or religious exemption.

The mandate exceeds CMS’s statutory authority and violates numerous federal laws.
The Biden Administration has acted without statutory authority, violated the Administrative Procedure Act, violated the Social Security Act, violated the Congressional Review Act, and violated the Constitution.

The mandate threatens the jobs of millions of our healthcare heroes.
In their attempt to co-opt the Medicare and Medicaid system to impose a vaccine on 17 million healthcare workers, the Biden Administration completely ignores the unprecedented labor shortage prevailing in the healthcare sector and patient wellbeing in favor of the President’s ambition to increase societal vaccination rates.

The unconstitutional CMS mandate would create healthcare shortages, upend state budgets.
The mandate causes grave danger to the vulnerable persons whom Medicare and Medicaid were designed to protect – the poor, children, sick, and the elderly – by forcing the termination of millions of essential health care workers. In addition to jeopardizing the health care interests of countless Americans, it puts billions of dollars of state funding at risk. In Missouri, several rural hospitals and health care organizations – the Missouri Health Care Association, the Scotland County Hospital, the Monroe City Manor Care Center, the Scotland County Care Center, the Missouri Department of Mental Health, the Clarence Care Center, the Loch Haven Nursing Home, and the La Plata Nursing Home – have all stated that the CMS vaccine mandate could lead to potentially devastating staff shortages and loss of critical care.

You can watch and monitor the arguments on CSPAN and online via the SCOTUS Blog.

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