News Archive
McKinney Experts Weigh in on Supreme Court Ruling Over Federal Vaccine Mandate
01/15/2022
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday that blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers is at the same time a “slam dunk” that enforces a more limited mandate for health care workers at facilities receiving federal money, according to IU McKinney Law Professor Nicolas Terry.
In a 6-3 vote, the court said that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had exceeded its authority but upheld a regulation issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that mandates vaccines for almost all employees at hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers that receive federal funds.
There’s some “wiggle room” for healthcare employers, IU McKinney Law Professor Nicolas Terry said in an interview on Fox 59.
“It’s a slam dunk that it [the vaccine mandate] applies to hospitals and nursing homes but less clear that it would apply, for example, to your primary care provider,” Terry said.
In the same news report, IU McKinney alumnus Zach Cattel, ’08, president of the Indiana Health Care Association, expressed concern that vaccine mandates hurt healthcare facilities’ ability to provide adequate staffing. “We need those individuals,” he said. “Staff is so thin that even losing one person is difficult.”
Professor Terry also weighed in on what the ruling might mean for Indiana specifically in an interview with South Bend’s ABC 57.
“Conservative states like Indiana likely will ban vaccine mandates or make them very difficult for employers to push through. There will be lots of exceptions, but in other states it’s likely there will be more mandates," Professor Terry said.
Professor Terry is the Hall Render Professor of Law at IU McKinney, where he serves as executive director of the Hall Center for Law and Health and teaches health care and health policy courses.
His recent scholarship deals with health privacy, mobile health, Big Data, artificial intelligence, and the opioid overdose epidemic. Professor Terry blogs for Harvard Law School’s Bill of Health and hosts a podcast, The Week in Health Law.
