Biden and U.S. business leaders meet to discuss vaccine requirements
Rule would apply to some 80M workers
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden met Wednesday with the
CEOS of Walt Disney and Columbia Sportswear, and other business executives and leaders, to discuss his recently announced vaccine requirement for companies that employ at least 100 people.
The White House meeting comes less than a week after Biden said that the Labor Department is working to require businesses with 100 or more employees to order those workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or show a negative test result at least weekly.
Some 80 million workers would be subject to the requirement,
Biden said. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is working to issue an emergency rule to implement the requirement in the coming weeks.
Biden said it would “take a little while” for the agency to put the new requirement “on the wall” alongside other health and safety policies, but he noted that employer moves toward mandates are already working to improve the nation’s laggard vaccination rate. His administration hopes that the announcement of the rule-making will jump-start the business community’s embrace of vaccinate-or-test requirements even
before the OSHA rule is implemented.
Biden noted that Fox News, many of whose hosts have sharply criticized his policy, has required its employees to report their vaccination status and is moving to require testing for its unvaccinated staffers.
Just over half, or 54 percent, of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden announced the new requirements and several other steps last Thursday as part of a tougher effort by the administration to curb the surging delta variant of the coronavirus, which is responsible for surge in U.S. infections, hospitalizations and deaths. He also sharply criticized the tens of millions of people who remain unvaccinated, despite the fact that the shots are
free of charge and widely available.
The business leaders and CEOS Biden met with at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex, either have put in place vaccine requirements or are working to implement such rules, the White House said.
Some business groups, including the Business Roundtable, welcomed the president’s announcement, while some Republicans accused Biden of overstepping his authority and have threatened to sue the administration over the vaccine mandate.
In other developments:
■ Nearly 3 million consumers took advantage of a special six-month period to sign up for subsidized health insurance coverage made more affordable by the COVID-19 relief law, Biden said Wednesday. He called that number encouraging and urged Congress to keep the trend going by extending the more generous financial assistance, currently available only through the end of next year.
■ First lady Jill Biden visited a Milwaukee elementary school Wednesday to talk with parents and educators about the return to in-person learning and to promote direct federal funds for COVID-19 safety protocols.
■ A House committee dealt an ominous if symbolic blow Wednesday to President Joe Biden’s huge social and environment package, derailing a money-saving plan to let Medicare negotiate the price it pays for prescription drugs.