USSC Rules on Vaxx Mandate: No to OSHA Large Company Rule - Yes to Healthcare Workers

 

In Court: Three Justices not wearing masks

(Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch: Why not???)

Not a surprising Supreme Court ruled against Biden’s OSHA vaxx mandate for large companies, yet he gets a 50/50 win nevertheless.

The story here from The AP with their headline:

“Supreme Court halts COVID-19 vaccine mandate rule for large U.S. businesses”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has stopped a major push by the Biden administration to boost the nation's COVID-19 vaccination rate, a requirement that employees at large businesses (1) get a vaccine, (2) or test regularly, and (3) wear a mask on the job.

At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the U.S.

The court’s orders came during a spike in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.

The court's conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) vaccine-or-test rule on U.S. businesses with at least 100 employees. 

More than 80 million people would have been affected. 

OSHA had estimated that the rule would save 6,500 lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations over six months. 

The high-court’s six conservatives wrote in an unsigned opinion: “OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.”

Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor wrote in a joint dissent: “The court is overreaching by substituting its judgment for that of health experts. Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the Court displaces the judgments of the Government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies.”

President Joe Biden said he was “disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law.”

He then called on businesses to institute their own vaccination requirements, noting that a third of Fortune 100 companies already have done so.

My 2 Cents: I do point out in the court image above that three conservative justice: Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch appear to not be wearing a mask while all the other are – I wonder why? Are they anti-vaxxers? God, I hope not, so why no mask then?

At least President Biden gets half of the package he offered … saving lives is critical – maybe the OSHA route was as they say “a bridge too far.” Sadly, I think it was worth taking … but I’m not on the bench.

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