CHARLESTON = West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey calls a recent federal court ruling that halted additional federal vaccine mandates a victory for the state and entire nation.
Last month, a Louisiana federal judge ruled in favor of a coalition of 12 attorneys general – including Morrisey – to stop a Biden administration mandate requiring vaccines for health care workers. The coalition said the mandate was another example of federal overreach.
“This is a tremendous victory for West Virginia and our entire country and we are extremely grateful for the court’s willingness to grant this injunction,” Morrisey said during a December 6 press conference at the state Capitol. “Given the insurmountable burdens that President Biden’s mandates impose on health care, our coalition is pleased the court understood that our position was the correct one, especially for individual freedoms for health care workers.”
The coalition, which includes West Virginia, had filed a lawsuit last month opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The court granted the injunction November 30.
“We are pleased that the court made a sensible decision and sided with individual freedoms for health care workers,” Morrisey previously said. “Our group has successfully stopped this mandate from taking effect for the time being, and we believe the mandate will be struck down permanently moving forward.
“Such mandates threaten to further burden the health care sector and patient well-being in West Virginia, where a large percentage of nursing home and other long-term care facilities are already facing worker shortages.”
The federal district court order said the state coalition was likely to succeed on most of its claims.
The coalition maintained the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate on facilities that receive federal funding for treating patients exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and violates the Social Security Act’s prohibition on regulations that control the hiring and firing of health care workers. The group said the mandate also violates multiple federal laws, clauses and doctrines and the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The AGs also said, the mandate would threaten the well-being of people who rely on services provided by the federal health care programs and the livelihoods of the people who provide that care. The court decision did say states would suffer serious harm from having their own laws preempted and their state powers encroached.
The lawsuit notes that the vaccine mandate causes danger to vulnerable persons whom Medicare and Medicaid were designed to protect – the poor, sick, and elderly – by forcing the firing of “healthcare heroes” who are essential to providing vital medical services.
According to CMS, the vaccine mandate targets about a quarter of the nation’s health care workers who have chosen not to get vaccinated.
Morrisey said the coalition hopes the ruling “sends a clear message about mandates.”
“I am supportive of anyone who gets the COVID vaccine, but I do not support federal mandates, and I will fight them with every means I have,” Morrisey said. “I’ve had a bad case of COVID and can attest to the seriousness of this virus, but we must persuade and educate, not mandate.”
In addition to West Virginia, attorneys general from Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah are plaintiffs in the case.
