GOP Doctors Caucus warns Biden healthcare vaccine mandate could worsen patient care, labor shortages
The GOP Doctors Caucus sent a pair of letters to President Biden and the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) warning a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers could worsen patient care and healthcare labor shortages.
The congressional caucus of healthcare experts sent letters led by Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., to Biden and CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure warning of the adverse affects a vaccine mandate might have on the healthcare industry.
"We support efforts to encourage Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but these decisions are best left to local leaders, and it is inappropriate to hold Federal dollars hostage," they wrote in their letter to Brooks-LaSure.
"Further, this could have unintended, negative consequences on the quality of patient care and workforce shortages," the congressional doctors warned.
The lawmakers also warned that the American healthcare system already seeing labor shortage pressure on it "will be further – and perhaps catastrophically – strained by an inflexible COVID-19 vaccine mandate forcing frontline health care workers to choose between vaccination and continued employment."
"Given the current state of the pandemic, a mass layoff of health care employees would be detrimental to and undercut our own efforts to combat it," the doctors concluded their letter to Brooks-LaSure.
"Therefore, we urge CMS not to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine for health care facility employees," they continued. "If you do, we strongly urge you to exempt employees who can provide proof of natural immunity and to consider allowing unvaccinated individuals to continue their employment subject to routine COVID-19 testing."