A federal appeals court upheld Monday a district court order that stopped the White House from requiring healthcare workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
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Anadolu Agency.
The case is being appealed, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Biden administration's request to lift the injunction blocking the mandate.
One judge on the three-judge panel would have granted the motion, but the court did not explain its decision.
The order only applies to Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, and is different from a federal judge's order blocking the mandate nationwide.
The vaccine mandate should be blocked because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not have the authority to issue it, argued the judge.
Schelp disagreed with the federal government that the mandate was an emergency rule that could be imposed without congressional approval.
A request for comment has not been responded to.
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The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled against the federal government's vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers, so the other lawsuit against Biden's healthcare vaccine mandate is still pending. The vaccine mandate cases could be appealed to the Supreme Court, which has already upheld other vaccine mandates.
After the district court ruled in favor of the healthcare worker vaccine mandate, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Forbes in a statement that the requirement addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety and provides stability and uniformity across the nation's healthcare system. The staff in any healthcare setting who remain unvaccinated pose both direct and indirect threats to patient safety.
The key background.
The healthcare mandate is one of four vaccine requirements the Biden administration had imposed, along with orders for federal employees, federal contractors and a policy requiring vaccinations or regular testing for private employers with more than 100 employees. The policies have been met with resistance and litigation by GOP-led states, which has led to a string of recent court rulings blocking the policies. The private employer rule was blocked by the 5th Circuit and a district court judge in Georgia issued an injunction against the federal contractor requirement. The requirement for federal employees has not changed, and the Biden administration reported in late November that 96.5% of employees have either been vaccinations or applied for an exemption.
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