(Just the News) The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate that would apply to large U.S. businesses.
However, the high court allowed let stand a separate policy that requires vaccinations for most health-care workers at facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding.
The court’s majority was doubtful that the administration possesses the legal authority to impose the workplace vaccine mandate, through the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration, which would have accounted for about 80 million employees. The healthcare worker mandate accounts for about 17 million U.S. workers.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh were the only members of the court to find themselves in the majority on both decisions.
All three Democrat-appointed justices dissented from the decision to block the workplace vaccine mandate. Justices Clarance Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett dissent from the decision to allow the healthcare worker mandate to take effect.
Both rules had been challenged by Republican-led states, according to the Associated Press. In addition, business groups, among them the Job Creators Network and some of its members, attacked the OSHA emergency regulation as too expensive and likely to cause workers to leave their jobs amid another surge in infections and hospitalizations in the pandemic.
Last Friday, the justices heard nearly four hours of oral arguments on both policies before arriving at their decisions this week.