Paxton wins injunction to stop vaccine mandate
AUSTIN — The Biden administration cannot force staff at Texas hospitals and nursing homes to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.
The decision suspends a mandate that employees at federally funded health care facilities get fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.
Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who’s office brought the lawsuit, celebrated the preliminary injunction.
“This is a win for liberty,” he said in a statement. “The federal government does not have the ability to make health decisions for hard-working Americans.”
While federal officials promoted the mandates as a way to protect both patients and staff from COVID-19, health care executives warned the requirement could worsen worker shortages if employees refuse to get the shot.
Last month, nearly a third of the state’s long-term care workers had not yet been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, said Kevin Warren, president and CEO of the Texas Health Care Association.
“Our folks are taking this extra time to continue to push and promote the vaccine,” said Warren, who added the numbers are slowly improving.
A spokesperson for the Texas Hospital Association did not immediately return a request for comment.
Other federal courts across the country have similarly halted President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates, and, in response to those rulings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced earlier this month it would suspend enforcement.
In Texas, 56 percent of the state’s 29 million residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Far fewer have received a booster shot just as public health officials warn the omicron variant could spike another wave of infections.
The federal court ruling doesn’t stop hospitals and nursing homes in Texas from requiring their staff members to get the shot. Several Dallas-area health care organizations, including Parkland and Texas Health Resources, have taken that step.
However, after a federal judge in Louisiana ruled last month that the federal centers didn’t have authority to require vaccines for health care workers, several of the nation’s largest hospital chains, such as HCA Healthcare and Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, are dropping the mandates, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
On Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans narrowed the Louisiana judge’s nationwide preliminary injunction to just 14 states — not including Texas.
So Thursday’s order came after U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo granted an emergency hearing to Texas.
Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, then handed Paxton a preliminary injunction stopping the required jabs. It just applies to Texas. He said Paxton is likely to be able to show that the federal agency impermissibly skipped a notice-andcomment period, didn’t confer with Texas officials about the rule and didn’t do a regulatory impact analysis.
At Hansford County Hospital at the northern end of the Panhandle, just 56 percent of the staff are vaccinated, “as many refuse the vaccine on personal, religious, and medical grounds,” the judge noted.
“If enforced, the CMS mandate would likely create a greater strain on limited resources and prevent residents of rural communities from receiving vital medical services,” Kacsmaryk said.
Lawyers for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra argued to no avail that “any delay in implementation of this rule would result in additional deaths and serious illnesses among health care staff and consumers,” further straining hospitals and nursing homes.
The Biden administration rolled out the mandate in September to protect “those fighting this virus on the front lines while also delivering assurances to individuals and their families that they will be protected when seeking care.”
The proposed rule makes exceptions for medical and religious reasons and applies to facilities that receive funding from Medicaid or Medicare.