All of us in Michigan have reason to act against federal vaccine mandates. They attack the heart and conscience of healthcare. Each deadline disrupts more people’s lives, forcing them to choose between their own health decision and their livelihood caring for others. The mandates will increase unemployment, shortages, and care delays in your area.

You can protect yourself and your community. Here are 7 things to know.

1. Five types of federal vaccine mandate are hitting Michigan healthcare.

• The Veterans Administration issued the first employee vaccine mandate.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) mandates everyone it pays. CMS controls the majority of US patient dollars billed by doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, homecare, and more.
• The OSHA mandate affects healthcare businesses who bill hospitals and insurance companies. (Think supply chain and patient advocates.)
• President Biden’s executive order to federal contractors (including General Motors) is the toughest legal challenge according to Bloomberg Law.
• President Biden’s mandate to federal employees appears to cover doctors and nurses in sites with federal funding: clinics, community health centers, schools, Indian Reservations, and prisons.

Together, these mandates require vaccination of roughly two-thirds of all employees nationwide, including 17 million healthcare workers and 84 million employees, according to MedPage.

2. Courts, legislators, industries, employers, and sheer public inertia can all stop federal mandates.  Sometimes it takes a combination of them. Savvy citizens will strategically leverage every option.

3. Pressure from the federal mandate is inspiring people to act boldly.
Do you know anyone on a hospital board? Share this with them!
From a free market physician in Florida:

I have served my local hospital for nearly 20 years in a leadership capacity on numerous committees, including years as the chairman of Peer Review and Quality Control. I served years on the Medical Executive Committee. Last week, after nearly a decade of serving on the Board of Trustees, I immediately resigned from the Board in response to the hospital’s parent corporation decision to purge unvaccinated employees after the CMS threat to cut off Medicare funding. This is wrong on so many levels.
– Lee Gross, MD

4. Michigan healthcare employees are networking and learning how to be activists.

ACTION:

• finding allies in management and among peers
• submitting waivers
• resigning
• bracing to be fired
• joining lawsuits

5. The CMS mandate has the greatest impact on Michigan professionals and patients.

The consequences are too great for our elected officials to play politics on this.

TAKE ACTION:

• Read the stories of lawsuits filed by Missouri and Montana with other states to fight the CMS mandate.
• Contact our state’s elected Attorney General Dana Nessel to add Michigan to one or both lawsuits.
• Call 517-373-1110 or email: miag@michigan.gov.
• Talking points:
  The CMS mandate is bad for Michigan. It punishes professionals for using their own judgment.
  We are already short of healthcare staff. This drives out good clinicians, worsens our healthcare shortages, and risks patient lives.
  I live in Michigan. This impacts me by (optional example).
  Defend Michigan healthcare! Joining Michigan to the lawsuit(s) opposing the CMS mandate.”

6. The OSHA mandate will have the most impact on Michigan’s business economy. 

This mandate is most familiar to people. Placed on hold in the 5th Circuit Court, the OSHA mandate now faces trial to the 6th Circuit Court (Michigan’s region) for dozens of lawsuits.

The Michigan Senate recently passed Resolution 83 opposing this mandate. Tell your state senator what you think of it!

TAKE ACTION:
The OSHA mandate is still open to public comment. Add your comment here. Federal rule makers are required to accommodate public comments, and you will be joining tens of thousands of others.

Opposition may already be having an effect. MedPage reports that OSHA has suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement pending future developments in the litigation.

RESULTS: Already, a friend’s employer has suspended enforcement. This is the power of involved citizens defending freedom.

7. Do you know anyone standing up for healthcare freedom? MHF would like to honor them as a healthcare hero. Encourage them with an Activism Care Package!

 

— Abigail Nobel, BSN, RN, MA