GOP Lawmakers Push To Prohibit Medicare, Medicaid Vaccine Mandate

Although most federal vaccine mandates implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been lifted, a group of GOP lawmakers are on a mission to ensure that taxpayer money is not used to enforce such a requirement to recipients of Medicare or Medicaid benefits.

According to recent reports, nearly 20 Republican legislators signed a letter addressed to leaders of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittee in support of a measure to be added to the upcoming fiscal year’s appropriation bill that would prohibit the funding of any such mandate.

The lawmakers wrote to Reps. Kay Granger (R-TX), the committee’s chair, Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), its ranking member, and Robert Aderhold (R-AL), the subcommittee chairman, issuing a “request that you include language in your bill that would defund COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

The letter included a specific request for a prohibition of funding for such a rule within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Congress holds the power of the purse and must take every step possible to defund these tyrannical mandates once and for all,” the lawmakers wrote. “Again, we are asking that you include language that specifies that none of the funds appropriated shall be used for enforcing COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

More than a year ago, a group of House Republicans wrote a similar letter opposing any language that would have allowed funding of a military vaccine mandate in the appropriations bill.

“Hundreds of service members and their families have reached out to our offices about the direct impact of this mandate, their careers of service, and toll on their families,” the lawmakers wrote at the time.

They asserted that if such a military mandate were allowed to continue, it would “devastate morale and destroy our military readiness and weaken our national security posture,” adding: “With serious challenges emerging around the world, and an ill-prepared administration at the helm, a purge of this nature is especially troubling.”

Prohibiting funds for a vaccine mandate, they concluded, would help “set the record straight and remind our men and women in uniform we support them and will provide the resources they need to do their sworn duty.”