KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Attorneys general in Missouri and Kansas are suing to stop the federal government from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for most health care workers, opening a new front in their growing legal war against federal rules issued by President Joe Biden.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of 10 state attorneys general in United States District Court Eastern District of Missouri alleges the mandate is unconstitutional and threatens to worsen an ongoing shortage of health care workers. The challenge is one of several launched by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, both Republicans seeking higher office, in recent weeks.
The suit comes as Missouri is last in the nation in the percentage of nursing home personnel who are vaccinated, at 56.7%. Kansas is also in the bottom half of states, at 66.8%.
"Unfortunately, with this latest mandate from the Biden Administration, last year's healthcare heroes are turning into this year's unemployed. Requiring healthcare workers to get a vaccination or face termination is unconstitutional and unlawful, and could exacerbate healthcare staffing shortages to the point of collapse, especially in Missouri's rural areas," Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement.
The lawsuit targets rules issued by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requiring health care providers participating in Medicare or Medicaid to ensure their workers are vaccinated. Workers have until Jan. 4 to comply. The rule is expected to cover some 76,000 facilities and 17 million employees nationally.
The suit follows legal challenges intended to block other directives requiring large businesses to ensure their workers are vaccinated and that federal contractors employ vaccinated staff. A federal court over the weekend temporarily halted the business requirements.
Schmidt, who is running for governor, said the mandate on health care facilities will likely lead some, especially those in rural areas, to close because they won't be able to hire enough staff. He called the mandate "yet another one-size-fits-all regulation" that the courts should strike down.
"Kansas healthcare facilities and their employees are already facing hardships due to the stresses of the pandemic and the current labor shortage," Schmidt said in a statement.
The White House has said it's confident in the legal authority underpinning the rules and mandates. Biden, a Democrat, has framed the regulations as important steps in the ongoing fight against the virus.
"These are policies that are protecting workforces and avoiding disruptions related to employees getting sick with COVID ... expanding the workforce; and saving lives. That's the business that we're in," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
In their complaint, the attorneys general focus on the existing shortage of health care workers, including in Missouri. The filing cites a 2021 University of Missouri study that found that 97 of the state's 114 counties have a shortage of nurses.
The lawsuit also says that Randy Tobler, CEO of Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Mo., believes a mandate will encourage his staff to quit rather than receive the vaccine. The attorneys general cite comments Tobler previously made to CNN.
"There were people in the hospital that freely shared that if the vaccine mandate happened on our account or on anyone else's, they would not work here. That's just something they weren't going to put in their body," Tobler told CNN in October.
Most Missouri health care systems, with hospitals concentrated in urban and suburban areas, have already implemented their own mandates, said Dave Dillon, spokesman for the Missouri Hospital Association.
Hospital systems with mandates have often seen very few departures. At Saint Luke's Health System, just 1% of more than 12,000 employees have chosen not to get vaccinated. Less than 1% of the workforce at Truman Medical Centers/University Health have resigned rather than comply.
The Missouri Hospital Association has not taken a formal position on vaccine mandates for health care staff, Dillon said. Still, he noted such mandates are not new for Missouri hospitals, which commonly require staff to be immunized against the flu and other illnesses.
"It tends to be independent and rural hospitals that are holdouts" for the COVID vaccine requirement, he said. "We certainly know that even before the pandemic rural hospitals faced a workforce challenge... where there are differences there's probably a good reason."
But the organization believes vaccine mandates can be effective, Dillon said. A vaccinated health care workforce is a strong signal to communities to do the same, he added.
"Many of the healthcare organizations that put mandates in place on their own before the federal government mandate came into effect had very few members of their teams that ended up not getting vaccinated," Dillon said.
