On Thursday, January 13, Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Steve Rosansky released a video announcement to Chamber members and other businesses and community members about the Supreme Court ruling striking down the OSHA vaccination rule.
“The United States Supreme Court handed down two decisions today with regard to the mandatory vaccination order plan announced by President Biden that was to start going into effect as early as January 4,” said Rosansky in the video. “In the first decision on a 6 to 3 vote, the Supreme Court said that OSHA did not have the power to issue an order requiring all businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to either be vaccinated or to undergo weekly Coronavirus testing to keep their jobs.”
However, said Rosansky, “in the second, on a closer 5 to 4 vote, the court said that the United States Health and Human Services Secretary has the power to issue an order that requires all medical workers to be vaccinated if they work in a health care facility that accepts Medicare or Medicaid payments.”
Rosansky noted that the two cases were just heard last week and it is quite unusual for the court to render a decision in such short time when it typically takes months for them to do so.
“The disallowance of the OSHA rule is a blow to President Biden’s plan to increase the number of vaccinated individuals as a means of controlling the spread of the Coronavirus. The rule would have affected 84 million working Americans.”
Without the nationwide OSHA rule, Rosansky said it will be up to individual states to decide if mandatory vaccination in the workplace is a requirement that they want to pursue to encourage unvaccinated individuals to get the shots.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling only applies to OSHA and does not prohibit individual businesses from requiring that their employees be vaccinated as a condition of employment,” noted Rosansky. “Many companies have done so, as well as governmental agencies.
However, said Rosansky, the second Supreme Court decision will potentially affect 17 million healthcare workers who will now need to get fully vaccinated in order to continue working for a health care facility that accepts Medicare or Medicaid payments.
“This requirement was set to take effect by January 4, but it was stayed pending the Supreme Court decision,” said Rosansky. ‘Now, medical workers will have to have taken their first vaccination shot by January 27 and be completely immunized by February 28 to be in compliance.”
According to Rosansky, health care providers will be under additional pressure to fully staff their facilities, “as there will surely be employees who would rather leave their employment than get vaccinated.”
“Patients who rely on Medicare or Medicaid might also find that in some cases, their medical care providers may rather give up accepting government reimbursements than accede to the new mandatory vaccination rules for their workers,” added Rosansky. ‘This will force them to seek out new providers of medical care that accept their insurance.”
As always, Rosansky concluded his remarks by stating “get vaccinated or boosted, and be safe!”
For more information on the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, visit www.NewportBeach.com.
