Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates • Hacker News Board

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#91

Post by bko » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

DSMan195276 wrote: post #70

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what types of medical orders are allowed to be given to patients Suppose an anti-abortion president gets elected and he elects someone as head and tells them that health care providers that accept medicare or medicaid cannot provide abortions. Not making it illegal per-se, but just for the providers that accept medicare or medicaid for any of their services. You okay with this as well?

The problem I see with this kind of argument is that whether a health care provider provides abortion services has very little (nothing) to do with the care given to a medicaid or medicare patients. Where-as them being vaccinated for COVID does have a very clear impact on medicaid/medicare patients, especially since medicare patients are more likely to be in a high risk group (IE: old). It seems to me like you just d…

> The problem I see with this kind of argument is that whether a health care provider provides abortion services has very little (nothing) to do with the care given to a medicaid or medicare patients.

There's no mechanism to enforce this reasoning. It's whether the agency has the power to do it or not. For instance it could be argued that natural immunity is far superior to vaccines, so excluding healthcare workers with natural immunity from working is not about protecting patients.

> It seems to me like you just don't think medicare or medicaid should be a thing to begin with.

???

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#92

Post by strict9 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

hestefisk wrote: post #61

Whilst thousands of healthcare workers in the US —- those who are supposed to be proponents of public health measures and rational, scientific thinking - refuse to get vaccinated, ultimately resulting in stockpiles of vaccines getting destroyed … people in third world countries cannot get adequate access to vaccines. This is madness.

I agree with your sentiment, but the part about third world countries getting adequate access is more complicated than simply lacking access to shipments.

In many parts of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, hesitancy, misinformation on social media, and lack of adequate institutions is now more of a hindrance than getting shipments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/world/africa/coranavirus-...

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#93

Post by bwb » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #51

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what types of medical orders are allowed to be given to patients Suppose an anti-abortion president gets elected and he elects someone as head and tells them that health care providers that accept medicare or medicaid cannot provide abortions. Not making it illegal per-se, but just for the providers that accept medicare or medicaid for any of their services. You okay with this as well?

i'm pretty sure the average person on Hacker News would be ok with the Social Security administration banning gas powered leaf blowers. This place has become as intellectually low-brow as Twitter and Reddit.

Gas powered leaf blowers would have to be banned under the law before a government agency can then afford said law. Bit different...

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#94

Post by Chris2048 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #73

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what types of medical orders are allowed to be given to patients Suppose an anti-abortion president gets elected and he elects someone as head and tells them that health care providers that accept medicare or medicaid cannot provide abortions. Not making it illegal per-se, but just for the providers that accept medicare or medicaid for any of their services. You okay with this as well?

Banning health care providers from abortion would be unconstitutional. It would be the same as a president banning health care providers from serving muslims. Women have a constitutional right to get an abortion. People don't have a constitutional right to not vaccinate. Government can and has jailed and/or fined people for not getting a vaccine. These SCOTUS approved mandates helped rid America of smallpox.

Then just ban men from having them as well.

> Women have a constitutional right to get an abortion.

Do they? Where is that written?

EDIT: the vague "life, liberty, or property" clause as interpreted by Roe vs Wade. This is such a blank-cheque it may as well not be in the constitution as in hands all power to the interpretation of the courts.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#95

Post by 1970-01-01 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

Rules and laws. The virus does not care about these. At all. It does not care about your race, it does not care about your age. It doesn't care about your employment status, gender, religion, disability, nationality, wealth, or anything else. All it cares about is if it can replicate. As we debate and discuss and argue if laws and rules are justified or not, the virus simply ignores everything and does what it has been doing since it existed. The virus does not obey borders and mandates. It doesn't obey leaders, it doesn't obey power. Perhaps the end doesn't justify the means. Perhaps it's time we rethink how we respond. Either way, the virus doesn't care what you think. It moves as best it can.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#96

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

What I find most interesting is the private-sector scenarios and how they're playing out.

I have relatives who work in healthcare and refuse to get the vaccine. They're at risk of losing their jobs because regardless of external pressure, the hospital employing them is incentivized to let them go by the patients. They're a hospital focused on physical therapy, which is does as much elective business by volume as prescribed... And very few patients are willing to work with a physical therapist who isn't vaccinated, so they're simply losing business as word-of-mouth gets around that they don't require vaccines and patients sign up for their PT regiments with other hospitals in the region.

By the same token that the government (absent a law from Congress) perhaps can't force organizations to employ vaccinated staff, the government may have no say if an individual employee is fired because an organization requires vaccinated staff of their own accord.

This would be a good time for Congress to show some leadership and lay down some legal guidelines.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#97

Post by Bhilai » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

Mandates are probably not going to work but what would work is denying insurance claims. If someone ends up in a hospital occupying an ICU bed for an illness that could have been prevented by a vaccine widely and freely available then insurance companies (and medicare) should refuse to pay thousands of dollars for their treatment. It was their choice not to use preventative care available.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#98

Post by adrr » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #94

adrr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning health care providers from abortion would be unconstitutional. It would be the same as a president banning health care providers from serving muslims. Women have a constitutional right to get an abortion. People don't have a constitutional right to not vaccinate. Government can and has jailed and/or fined people for not getting a vaccine. These SCOTUS approved mandates helped rid America of smallpox.

Then just ban men from having them as well. > Women have a constitutional right to get an abortion. Do they? Where is that written? EDIT: the vague "life, liberty, or property" clause as interpreted by Roe vs Wade. This is such a blank-cheque it may as well not be in the constitution as in hands all power to the interpretation of the courts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#99

Post by verall » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #27

bko wrote: post #3

> Doughty said the CMS lacked the authority to issue a vaccine mandate that would require more than 2 million unvaccinated healthcare workers to get a coronavirus shot. > "There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million healthcare workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency," wrote Doughty. That's a good point. You can agree that its within the federal authority to mand…

> Too often we look at the end results (e.g. will this increase vaccination rates) rather than the means of getting there. Strongly agree. Tangentially, I felt this way about net neutrality. It should have been law passed by Congress. Instead, everyone cheered when an unelected executive board passed a net neutrality bill that the public wasn't allowed to read. And then, everyone had the audacity to be surprised when…

Because the chance of a net neutrality bill making it through the Senate is roughly equivalent to guessing Satoshi's wallet. We can barely pass debt ceiling increases to avoid national default.

The net neutrality PR did work though, the FCC was under a lot of pressure . ATT didn't pay all of those marketing firms to fraudulently post thousands of anti-net-neutrality comments for nothing.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#100

Post by cies » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #73

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what types of medical orders are allowed to be given to patients Suppose an anti-abortion president gets elected and he elects someone as head and tells them that health care providers that accept medicare or medicaid cannot provide abortions. Not making it illegal per-se, but just for the providers that accept medicare or medicaid for any of their services. You okay with this as well?

Banning health care providers from abortion would be unconstitutional. It would be the same as a president banning health care providers from serving muslims. Women have a constitutional right to get an abortion. People don't have a constitutional right to not vaccinate. Government can and has jailed and/or fined people for not getting a vaccine. These SCOTUS approved mandates helped rid America of smallpox.

> Banning health care providers from abortion would be unconstitutional.

Forcing care workers to take a medicine against their will is constitutional you say?

All medical procedures should be voluntary, or we go back to the times of lobotomy and forced sterilizations of minorities (and that's not as many decades back as you may think).

> Government can and has jailed and/or fined people for not getting a vaccine.

This means being unvaxed is a something only the rich can afford. Pay fines, and have a good lawyer.