Against the wishes of Joe Biden, House Republicans passed a bill that would end the public health emergency, opening a can of worms for the healthcare industry and state and local governments.
On Monday, Biden announced he was ending the pandemic emergency in May. Unraveling and unpacking the programs, the money, the mandates, and other public health measures that were initiated during the health emergency will take time, the administration says. Lifting the emergency immediately would “create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system,” says the White House.
The abrupt end to the pandemic emergency would no doubt cause unforeseen disruptions. This is especially true for hospitals that have been supported by the massive COVID-19 relief packages in the last 3 years and patients who would no longer automatically get free COVID tests and treatments.
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It doesn’t matter. Republicans know that the Democratic Senate wouldn’t touch this legislation.
“This is not serious legislating; this is political posturing,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We all want to move on, but we want to do so responsibly.”
And Republicans might think twice about lifting the emergency when they consider that it’s the only thing standing in the way of an even bigger tsunami of illegal aliens bull-rushing the border.
But Biden recognizes the potency of ending the emergency as a political issue. And Republicans got the drop on him.
Republicans, who know the bill has no chance of being enacted with Biden in the White House, said their aim was to send a message and push the administration for a more detailed plan for winding down the emergency.
“We’ve been asking for one for a year,” Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee chair, told POLITICO. “Hopefully, this will have them send a plan … there are issues we need to deal with.”
One of those issues is the matter of vaccine mandates for some federal workers. And by a vote of 220-206 — with seven Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP — the House decided to end the vaccine mandate for some healthcare workers.
The measure, introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), calls for stopping the Health and Human Services secretary from enforcing workplace regulations and standards enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic — including the vaccine mandate — at Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities.
Under the rules, health workers at Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities are required to have at least their first dose in a primary series of coronavirus vaccinations in order to provide care, treatment or services. More than 10 million health industry workers across roughly 76,000 facilities are subject to the vaccine requirements.
This is just more coronavirus theater. Republicans and Democrats are doing a Kabuki dance with both sides — and the audience — knowing all the steps. There is one useful aspect of the exercise: it puts Joe Biden and the Democrats on notice that Republicans will continue to dance this dance even if he ends the public health emergency — something he could have easily done before last summer.
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