Posted on 11/22/2022 12:50:01 PM PST by lightman
The White House on Tuesday announced “new enforcement guidance” on COVID-19 vaccine mandates for nursing home residents and staff.
It announced “new enforcement guidance to ensure nursing homes are offering updated COVID-19 vaccines and timely treatment to their residents and staff,” according to a White House fact sheet released Tuesday morning. It said that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) still requires “nursing homes to educate their residents” on COVID-19 vaccines and to offer vaccines to residents.
“CMS will issue guidance today reminding health care providers of this requirement,” the fact sheet said. “In its guidance, CMS will make clear that nursing homes with low vaccination rates will be referred to state survey agencies for close scrutiny, and that facilities that do not comply with the requirement to offer and educate on the benefit of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccinations will face enforcement actions, including the need to submit corrective action plans to achieve compliance.”
The White House did not elaborate on what “enforcement actions” it would implement. However, in the fall of 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration announced vaccine mandates for facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding—along with a now-scrapped rule that would force workers at companies with 100 or more employees to get the shot.
The Epoch Times contacted CMS for comment on what penalties health care providers may encounter.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to the White House will ask “governors for their assistance and partnership in increasing COVID vaccination rates for long-term care residents and highlight for them how their states are performing against their peers.”
Corporate and government COVID-19 vaccine mandates have largely fallen out of favor in recent months amid falling COVID-19 numbers. Tyson Foods, the largest meat company by sales in the United States, confirmed last week that it dropped its mandate, while a New York judge tossed New York City’s mandate for city employees in October.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last year that the requirement covers 10.4 million health care workers at 76,000 facilities.
Mandate
The vaccine requirement for Medicare and Medicaid providers was one of several mandates Biden’s administration imposed upon private-sector employers to try to drive up vaccination rates. The rule impacted doctors, nurses, aides, technicians; and even volunteers at hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient surgery centers, home-health providers, and other medical facilities that get Medicaid or Medicare funding.
The Supreme Court blocked a rule requiring employers with more than 100 workers to be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19. A lower court also blocked a requirement for employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated.
Over the months, Biden’s various vaccine orders were challenged in court by Republican-led states, conservative groups, and some businesses. The lawsuits argued in part that the mandates exceeded federal executive powers and infringed on states’ rights to regulate public health matters.
About two-dozen states recently asked (pdf) HHS and CMS to end its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. Led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, 22 state attorneys general argued that the current policy is outdated and noted that vaccines don’t protect against COVID-19 infections.
“The mandate has limited many patients’ access to needed medical care and imposed substantial costs on patients and health care workers without any corresponding benefits. The Biden administration should have never imposed this mandate, and CMS should now throw it in the trash bin where it belongs,” Knudsen, a Republican, said in a statement.
Further, the states asserted that the CMS mandate led to widespread staffing shortages at health care facilities and limited patients’ access to medical care. CMS and HHS did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Earlier this year, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure stated that vaccine mandates had not led to significant shortages, although she did not provide evidence.
“We have seen that healthcare systems that implement vaccine requirements are not experiencing dramatic staff losses,” Brooks-LaSure had said in a letter (pdf) in February to health care facilities. “Vaccinated staff are instead more available to work since they are less likely to get sick.”
On Nov. 11, a spokesperson for HHS said that the Biden administration will keep its COVID-19 emergency intact when the current emergency expires in January 2023 after a 60-day deadline passed. The spokesperson said that the emergency “remains in effect and as HHS committed to earlier, we will provide a 60-day notice to states before any possible termination or expiration.”
A number of individual states, including ones run by Democrats, have dropped their respective states of emergency and some mandates in recent days. For example, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, announced his state’s public health emergency ended on Oct. 31.
Looks like the leftists want to finish off the job killing off as many of the elderly in nursing homes as possible.
Let’s Go Brandon!
* offer *
At one time, nursing home residents were locked up like prisoners.
Nobody in. Nobody out. For a YEAR.
This is medical kidnapping.
I hear brandons’ gonna let Mario cuomo take the lead on that.......just to be sure
Wait, what?
You mean bidet didn’t cure covid like he had claimed?
Yeah, and he also didn’t cure cancer like he promised.
Nothing brings the Joy of Christmas than to celebrate the passing of Granny after she was forced to take the vaxx at her nursing home.
He’s currently distracted trying to find the cure for dementia.
“Got to kill off dose useless eaters”... “Kaiser” Klaus Schwab
He’s back from Indonesia, rested up, and going back to turning this country fascist.
WHO in the White House? That building doesn't talk. Which person or persons came up with this "New Enforcement Guidance"?
It's time we started insisting that government name names, and end this longtime practice of allowing decision-making bureaucrats to maintain anonymity by hiding behind their office or agency.
The White House has no right to issue guidelines. Nor do they have respect in the medical industry or active scientists and researchers. They are a political beast. Nobody should listen to them about standard of care.
My sister was one.
It destroyed what was left of her mentally. When we were finally “allowed” to go and see her, she was like a zombie.
Her hands and feet were curled, she sat in the wheelchair crooked, couldnt hold her head up, and conversed in grunts or simply said yup and nope.
To “OFFER” covid shots. Does not indicate they are required.
There’s enough data out there that “mandates” of the COVID shots, at this point, are murder.
Vaccination or no oatmeal and Andy Griffith re-runs for you.
Is Biden going all in and putting Anthony Cuomo in charge of the nursing homes?
CMS mandates are still in effect for health care employees—that would be hospital staff or any agency receiving Medicare Medicaid funds.
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