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A US Federal Judge in Missouri temporarily blocked the implementation of President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine requirements for health care workers in 10 States. The court found that the Biden administration overstepped its authority in ordering employees at a range of health care facilities to get their shots. The US District Judge Matthew Schelp of the federal district court in St. Louis said in his 32-page order that a group of 10 states challenging the rule were likely to succeed on the merits of their case. However, the CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) wanted authorization from Congress to impose its vaccine requirements. The order of Schelp stops the Biden administration from imposing and enforcing its rule. The 10 states affected are Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Schelp wrote in his decision and said, “Even if Congress’s statutory language was susceptible to CMS’s exceedingly broad reading, which it is most likely not. Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact, this was politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate”. Moreover, the CMS published the new rule in November requiring health care workers at 15 categories of facilities that receive funding through Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The measure requires employees to have at least their first dose of the vaccine by December 6, and they must be fully vaccinated by January 4. Those covered by the rule don’t have a testing option in lieu of vaccination. The 10 states sued the Biden administration over the vaccine rule for health care workers earlier this month led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson.

Schmitt and Peterson claimed that it violates the Constitution and federal law. The officials also warned the requirement will compound shortages of health care workers, especially in rural areas, and threaten to put millions out of work. Schelp wrote in his order that the economic cost of the vaccine requirement is overwhelming. He said, “The political significance of a mandatory coronavirus vaccine is hard to understate, especially when forced by the heavy hand of the federal government. Truly, the impact of this mandate reaches far beyond COVID. CMS seeks to overtake an area of traditional state authority by imposing an unprecedented demand to federally dictate the private medical decisions of millions of Americans. Such action challenges traditional notions of federalism. COVID cannot be a compelling justification forever, and CMS’s evidence shows COVID no longer poses the dire emergency it once did”.