Hospitals reconsider vaccine mandate amid staffing shortages

Major hospital systems across the country are quietly scrapping their vaccine mandates amid worker shortages and growing confusion as to whether such requirements on the national level are even legal.

Two separate federal courts found in late November that President Joe Biden’s attempt to impose a nationwide vaccine requirement for healthcare workers likely exceeded the authority of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which were meant to implement the rule. That mandate is currently paused, along with two others the Biden administration had hoped to impose at the federal level.

A number of major hospital companies quickly moved to reverse the mandates they had announced in anticipation of the Biden administration rule coming into effect on schedule.

The rule changes will affect hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers.