Supreme Court Rules on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

1/13/22 — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two different cases to uphold the CMS COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare personnel and to strike down the OSHA COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS). In a 5-4 decision the case of Biden v. Missouri, the Court ruled that CMS was within its authority in imposing the vaccination requirement for employees of Medicare and Medicaid funded healthcare facilities to protect their patients, much like CMS imposes other conditions of participation. In a 6-3 decision in the case of National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, the Court ruled that OSHA exceeded its authority to require all employers with more than 100 employees to implement a policy compelling employees to either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to regular testing and masking at work because COVID-19 is not exclusively a workplace hazard. Please note that the OSHA vaccination ETS only applied to employees that are not covered by the CMS rule. Healthcare personnel are subject to the CMS requirement.