Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is suing the Biden administration over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for nursing home staffs and other health care professionals, arguing that it would worsen the industry’s current worker shortage.
More than nine in 10 Florida nursing homes have reported labor shortages, and the vaccine mandate announced by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will only make the situation more dire, according to the complaint filed in the Northern District of Florida on Nov. 18.
“Pandemic-related burnout has created critical staffing shortages nationwide,” the lawsuit states. “Compounding the problem, many health care employees do not want to take the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly in small, rural areas already short on personnel. Combined, these factors have created a powder keg, and health care officials fear a vaccine mandate could spark an exodus of workers from the industry.”
The two-year-long worldwide pandemic, which has so far has killed more than 770,000 Americans, does not justify the CMS vaccination mandate, which ignores the effects of new coronavirus treatments or natural immunity, the complaint says.
AARP Florida, which has expressed support for the federal vaccine mandate for nursing home staffs, did not comment directly on the attorney general’s lawsuit. But spokeswoman Jamie Champion Mongiovi pointed to some recent positive trends relating to the state’s nursing home workforce.
“AARP Florida’s most recent COVID-19 dashboard (Nov. 11) has shown a decrease in the percent of Florida nursing homes experiencing staffing shortages (from 25% to 22% in the most recent report – approximately one in five nursing homes in the state are self-reporting staffing shortages),” Mongiovi said in an email to the Florida Record. “Additionally, the percent of Florida nursing home staff getting vaccinated showed the largest increase to date in our most recent release.”
The share of vaccinated nursing home workers went from 53% to 59% in the latest report, she said. The state still lags behind the national average for such vaccinations, according to Mongiovi, but she said it’s encouraging to see such an increase.
Moody’s lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order against U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and other federal officials. CMS lacks the authority to issue the industry-wide vaccine requirement, according to the complaint.