SCOTUS Won’t Hear Healthcare Vaccine Mandate Case Again

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge of the healthcare vaccine mandate brought on by 10 states claiming the mandate is an overreach of the federal government’s power over states and violates federal administrative law.

The healthcare vaccine mandate was back on the Supreme Court’s desk after a lower court also would not hear an appeal from the states. The Supreme Court had ruled in a five to four decision in January to allow enforcement of the healthcare worker vaccine mandate while litigation continued in the lower courts.

In that decision, the majority agreed that requiring healthcare workers in direct contact with patients to get vaccinated aligns with the medical profession’s mission to “first, do no harm,” and the mandate from the Biden administration “fits neatly within” the authority Congress has granted HHS to impose conditions on federal funds. The majority comprised the court’s liberal justices, as well as  Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

At the same time, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to require vaccination or weekly testing of workers at larger employers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which was to enforce the policy, later withdrew the mandate for large employers.

Under the federal healthcare vaccine mandate, hospitals and other healthcare facilities must ensure their staff are fully vaccinated or risk losing Medicare and Medicaid funding. The mandate applies to about 10.3 million workers employed by 76,000 healthcare facilities, which also include ambulatory surgery centers and nursing homes.

The federal mandate was implemented in November 2021.

Missouri led the lawsuit challenging the healthcare vaccine mandate and was joined by Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

The mostly Republican-led states had previously won an injunction against the healthcare vaccine mandate, which blocked the Biden administration’s enforcement in those areas. The mandate had also been blocked in 15 other states, including Arizona and Texas, under separate laws.

However, following the Supreme Court’s decision in January, Missouri’s lawsuit was kicked back to the lower courts where the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a federal judge in April. Missouri then appealed to the Supreme Court again.

Vaccine mandates have faced a host of legal challenges. However, the legal system has increasingly refused to hear cases regarding the mandates. For example, the Supreme Court declined in July to hear a case from healthcare workers in New York challenging a state vaccine mandate. They challenged the mandate because it did not include a religious exemption.

This trend comes as many companies outside of healthcare also drop their own vaccine requirements for workers.

The healthcare vaccine mandate was generally accepted by providers, according to a survey conducted in 2021. In the survey of over 1,000 physicians and clinicians, only about a third disagreed with the vaccine mandates at the time.