(Headline USA) The Senate voted this week to end President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers whose employers receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The resolution passed 49 to 44, with every Republican voting in favor of it and Democrats failing to secure enough votes to stop it.
However, the Democrat-controlled House will likely spike the resolution, and if it doesn’t, Biden will likely veto it. The resolution, introduced by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kans., slammed Biden for implementing the sweeping mandate.
“The Medicare and Medicaid vaccine mandate will impact every family, every person across this great nation,” he said. “The Biden Administration’s mandate is about fulfilling their desire to control every aspect of our lives, and it’s a slap in the face to the hard-working men and women who never took a day off in the front-line fight of the COVID-19 battle.”
The Supreme Court upheld the mandate in a January decision, even though it struck down a separate vaccine mandate that applied to all private employers.
Marshall argued the court’s ruling is not a justification for keeping the mandate in place.
“That does not mean it is a good rule or a beneficial condition to place on these facilities given everything I have laid out here today,” he said. “As such, the fight against this harmful rule continues here on the Senate Floor but also throughout our nation’s federal judicial system.”
Healthcare workers have until March 15 to become fully vaccinated or face termination. Marshall noted that the mandate will have a disastrous effect on hospitals already facing worker shortages.
“We already have a dire shortage of doctors, nurses, ultrasound techs, kitchen staff, custodians in all these hospitals and nursing homes,” Marshall said. “This mandate will result in more staffing shortages and firings.”
