With Republicans back in the majority, the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 31 passed a series of bills related to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
The GOP majority in the lower chamber took up two COVID-19 bills on Tuesday, with many others still on the docket for possible consideration later this year.
The first bill would officially declare an end to the public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second bill would end the vaccine mandate for health care workers at institutions that receive federal funding.
During the 117th Congress, the Democrat majority in both chambers largely marched in lockstep with President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 policies, including vaccine mandates.
Republicans, on the other hand, have pointed to the low risk the virus poses to younger people and those without pre-existing health conditions. Many Republicans opposed vaccine mandates as a violation of Americans’ rights to choose which drugs they put into their bodies.
Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said the two bills being considered will “restore our constitutional rights and freedoms after two long years of Democrats COVID-19 power grab policies.”
In many places, Americans found themselves effectively barred from leaving their homes amid mandatory lockdowns, which in turn caused substantial mental health and socialization issues among young adults and children.
“The extended COVID lockdowns like the ones we saw in my home state of New York caused irreparable damage to our children’s development, financial strain on our small businesses and unnecessary deaths among our most vulnerable seniors,” Stefanik said.
The bill passed by Republicans, the first in a round of two expected votes, would end a federal vaccine mandate for health care workers at facilities that receive federal funding.
The bill passed in a 227–203 vote, including 7 Democrats supporting the measure.
Biden announced the health care mandate as part of a larger declaration announcing vaccine mandates for all federal civilian and military personnel. Many Americans, including those with significant reservations about the novel vaccine, which has not undergone long-term testing, were faced with the choice to take the jab or lose their jobs.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Lt. Col. Adam Conrad, who asked that his name be changed to protect him from retribution by the Department of Defense, described the effects of this mandate on servicemembers.
“I’ve never seen morale so low,” he said.
While federal employees were targeted most by Biden’s mandates, private institutions, hospitals, and clinics that received federal funding were also subject to the mandates. In this case, the mandates came not from the president but from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The CMS mandate, which doesn’t allow a testing opt-out, covers more than 17 million health care workers.
Guidelines on the CMS website read: “[Health care] staff must be fully vaccinated (with the exception of those who have been granted exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine or for those staff for whom the COVID-19 vaccination must be temporarily delayed, as recommended by CDC).”
In January 2022, the Supreme Court declined to strike down the vaccine requirement for health care workers, while at the same time agreeing to strike down a business mandate.
The Freedom for Health Care Workers Act would roll back this mandate on health care workers.
“All of us rightfully were applauding our frontline heroes, applauding all those health care workers who was showing up treating COVID patients,” Scalise said of the bill.
“And then you saw this administration—while they started applauding them—ultimately, they said that they would have to be fired if they didn’t get the COVID vaccine.
“Workers were forced to lose their jobs over that vaccine mandate that wasn’t even in law. It was a ruling that came out of [the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services]. Let’s get those health care workers back to work,” Scalise said. “Let’s continue as the heroes that they are not tried to shame them, or terminate their careers, because they didn’t get vaccinated from COVID.”
