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

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#151

Post by Radim » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #97

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.

And what do you propose happens to vaccinated people who occupy ICU beds?

Or, for that matter, to other groups of people with an "illness that could have been prevented by a widely and freely available measure"?

A few spring to mind immediately – obesity first and foremost.

In broad terms, I agree with your approach: incentives at the personal level. Bottom-up. But in many countries (mine included, in EU), "health insurance" is really just a tax. There's no connection between your health & behaviour, and the "insurance" cost or fulfillment. So what you propose would essentially amount to privatizing health care, or at least turning it from an income tax into real insurance.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#152

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

orang2tang wrote: post #67

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you imagine a news report about how the much touted vaccine efficacy of 95% didn't really pan out? It didn’t pan out because of Delta, a way more infectious variant that became common well after the 95% figure was determined. And it’s fully accurate to say that despite Delta, the vaccines are effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death. I think that’s a very good thing!

Anyone who took a biology class and paid attention could have told you that an efficacy-killing variant was an inevitability. Hell, even tinfoil hat Alex Jones said the same thing, and was for that specific instance, vindicated entirely. The top virologists didn't just "not take this into account", they willfully withheld this truth of how viruses operate in order to push a flakey, quickly-deteriorating product into…

[deleted]

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#153

Post by peter422 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

orang2tang wrote: post #67

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you imagine a news report about how the much touted vaccine efficacy of 95% didn't really pan out? It didn’t pan out because of Delta, a way more infectious variant that became common well after the 95% figure was determined. And it’s fully accurate to say that despite Delta, the vaccines are effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death. I think that’s a very good thing!

Anyone who took a biology class and paid attention could have told you that an efficacy-killing variant was an inevitability. Hell, even tinfoil hat Alex Jones said the same thing, and was for that specific instance, vindicated entirely. The top virologists didn't just "not take this into account", they willfully withheld this truth of how viruses operate in order to push a flakey, quickly-deteriorating product into…

If virologists weren't talking about it, how did you learn about it? Do you know enough about virology (or immunology as this would be) that I should listen to you over them?

If the vaccines don't work, why do people in the real world die much, much less often from covid once they are vaccinated?

If you are so sure an immune-evading variant will emerge, why hasn’t one? (There is no evidence at all that omicron evades the vaccines).

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#154

Post by allturtles » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

orang2tang wrote: post #67

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you imagine a news report about how the much touted vaccine efficacy of 95% didn't really pan out? It didn’t pan out because of Delta, a way more infectious variant that became common well after the 95% figure was determined. And it’s fully accurate to say that despite Delta, the vaccines are effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death. I think that’s a very good thing!

Anyone who took a biology class and paid attention could have told you that an efficacy-killing variant was an inevitability. Hell, even tinfoil hat Alex Jones said the same thing, and was for that specific instance, vindicated entirely. The top virologists didn't just "not take this into account", they willfully withheld this truth of how viruses operate in order to push a flakey, quickly-deteriorating product into…

> Anyone who took a biology class and paid attention could have told you that an efficacy-killing variant was an inevitability

On what basis? It's proved impossible so far to make a strongly efficacious flu vaccine because of constantly shifting variants. But on the other hand, there are many examples of successful vaccines that have never had an efficacy-killing variant emerge (polio, smallpox, chicken pox). How would anyone who has taken a biology class know a priori whether COVID-19 would be a flu or a polio?

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#155

Post by golemotron » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #132

golemotron wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the key problem with the US now. Elected representatives are allowed to delegate law making. It breaks the line of accountability. It makes contentious issues worse.

> the key problem with the US now. Elected representatives are allowed to delegate law making. Congress does not delegate lawmaking, Congress delegates the execution of its powers to the Executive branch. This is how the country has functioned since the beginning, for it would be impractical for it to work otherwise. Say more: delegation will happen at some level, by definition. In military matters, every step or sho…

> Congress delegates the execution of its powers to the Executive branch

That's the Constitution, not Congress. Regulation, as well, is not execution. Thomas's concurrence on Whitman v. American Trucking Ass’ns signals where things might go.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#156

Post by javagram » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

bingohbangoh wrote: post #113

redblacktree wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress has delegated the authority to make these decisions to regulatory agencies. If congress wants that authority back, they can get it back via legislation. The responsibility for the current situation starts and stops with congress. The executive branch is doing what congress has asked it to do, and the executive branch would stop doing those things the moment that congress legislated the authority back to them…

Does the CDC have regulatory mandates to ensure vaccination? Does this extend to "get vaccinated or get fired?" People very broadly give power to the CDC that I don't think they have.

Why are you mentioning the CDC?

Do you know that the two federal mandates were issued by CMS and by OSHA, two completely different organizations from the CDC?

BTW, the law as written gives very broad powers to OSHA and other agencies. This is controversial mainly because one political side in the country is anti vaccine right now.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#157

Post by tastyfreeze » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #108

cies wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Thi…

Greater good of society out weighs people's individual rights. These are basic constitutional tenets. Why you can't yell fire in a crowded theater even though you have the right to free speech. Why the SCOTUS has ruled vaccine mandates are constitutional.

Society is a cultural framework and does not in any way supercede individual rights. There is no greater good. The SCOTUS has ruled that states have the authority to mandate vaccination not the federal government. The federal government is extremely limitited in its authority by the Constitution.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#158

Post by q1w2 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 3:57 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.

What's telling is the contrast in covid vaccination rates between nurses vs doctors.

The vast majority of doctors get themselves vaccinated, whereas a large portion of nurses only get vaccinated as needed legally.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#159

Post by wayoutthere » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #19

kitd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can agree that its within the federal authority to mandate vaccines, but it really should be a decision made and explicitly endorsed by elected representatives rather than some agency (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) that I have never heard of until now and whose head is appointed by one person. If the CMS does it, it is a public health decision. Doing it in Congress makes it a political decision. IMO,…

I disagree. It is a political decision to force 2 million Americans to get a vaccine that they don't want under threat of not being allowed to work in their profession. If you disagree with the decision at least you can vote the bastards out. You're acting like its a trivial procedural matter. These people obviously feel very strongly about it since they're under immense pressure everywhere to get it and they still r…

This is absolute horseshit. Government regulation of public health during a pandemic is absolutely its role.

We have required a great number of vaccines for the last 100 years. The coronavirus vaccines are some of the most-tested out there. Anti-vaxxing was a fringe position that nobody took seriously before Covid.

The only reason this virus is remotely political is because we had a demagogue in the president’s office who likes to force people into contrarian positions because it strokes his ego. So if people want to stay home from work because their politics don’t allow them to do the job, that’s not my problem.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#160

Post by bko » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

DSMan195276 wrote: post #127

bko wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> 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. I'm not sure what you're getting at, Congress gave the agency the power to set guidelines for requirements for caring for medicaid/…

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

Please don't ascribe beliefs or intentions to me that I didn't explicitly state.

> Why should my tax dollars to go a healthcare provider who doesn't want to get the vaccine when that money can go to one who will?

Medicare and Medicaid should be fee for treatment. Why shouldn't I be allowed to choose what provider I want to visit for the same treatment? They can have different covid policies, much like schools do. I don't think it should be a federal issue.

> The medicare/medicaid patients that we're paying for will get better treatment from those healthcare providers who require vaccination, and if better care is not the goal than what is?

You're mistaking treatment for safety protocols. A health care provider can have a certain doctor to nurse ratio or a million other things and they may not all be "optimal" as defined by the powers that be. We should allow people to choose what health care provider is right for them based on their constraints and not restrict options.