‘I’m disappointed’ – Biden’s 3G plans for big businesses halted
Biden called on employers to now make vaccination mandatory themselves, as many large companies have already done
Source: REUTERS
The US Supreme Court narrowly stopped the government’s planned 3G rules for private companies. However, the obligation to vaccinate in care facilities and hospitals was confirmed.
uS President Joe Biden has suffered a major setback in his efforts to fight the corona pandemic: the country’s Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s corona vaccination requirements for large companies on Thursday. The Supreme Court in Washington ruled that the authorities had exceeded their powers by requiring companies with more than 100 employees to be vaccinated or tested.
Biden immediately criticized the decision of the conservative-dominated constitutional court. “I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has decided to block life-saving requirements for corporate employees that are common sense and based on both science and the law,” the President said. He called on employers to now make vaccination compulsory themselves, as many large companies have already done.
Prominent Brown University medic Ashish Jha also called the judges’ decision “very disappointing.” “This decision will mean more suffering, more deaths and more overwhelmed hospitals,” he wrote on Twitter.
Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, on the other hand, was “proud” of the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court has spoken and confirmed what we all knew: Biden’s devastating mandates are unconstitutional,” the Republican said.
With the vaccination requirements for millions of employees, Biden wanted to increase the number of people who can be vaccinated. Large companies should therefore have to ensure that their employees are fully vaccinated or get tested once a week. Otherwise, fines for the company should be threatened.
This would have affected around 84 million employees – including vaccinated employees. The government argued the measure would prevent more than 250,000 hospitalizations and thousands of deaths.
The Biden administration also mandated that nursing home and hospital workers who treat patients covered by state health plans Medicare and Medicaid be fully vaccinated. There is no option here to have yourself tested regularly as an alternative. According to the Biden administration, the measure affects around 17 million healthcare workers in around 76,000 facilities across the country.
This measure was approved by the constitutional judges on Thursday. Biden welcomed this and declared that the decision would “save lives”.
With more than 845,000 corona deaths, the USA is the country with the highest registered number of deaths in the world. Nevertheless, only 62.7 percent of the total population in the country have been vaccinated against the corona virus.
That is significantly less than in Germany, for example. Vaccination, like wearing protective masks, is a political issue in the United States. The opposition Republicans see compulsory vaccination as an attack on individual liberties.
For Biden, the decision of the Supreme Court means the second political defeat within one day. Earlier, two Democratic senators made it clear that they would oppose a change in a key Senate rule the president is trying to change. This leaves Biden with little or no chance of weakening the voting rule known as the filibuster in order to get two electoral reform bills through Congress.