Free Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court’s divergent rulings regarding COVID vaccine mandates offer a stark enough contrast between the constitutional limits of the government’s power. But there’s another takeaway from the High Court with far greater consequences to civil liberties, regardless of your position on vaccines. In a much-ballyhooed win for the rule of law and the Constitution, the High Court soundly rejected the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for large private employers. The 6-3 decision reaffirmed that the power to make law lies with Congress, not federal agencies, not even during a pandemic. That is, no matter how much the President desires...

Denying natural immunity in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) vaccine mandates is “unprecedented in modern history,” a prominent public health expert said.Dr. Scott Atlas, a former White House COVID-19 Task Force adviser during the Trump administration, made the remarks after the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decide to uphold the CMS vaccine mandates in a Thursday ruling.He told The Epoch Times that the ruling is “another serious denial of scientific fact” specifically mentioning the denial of natural immunity in CMS vaccine mandates.“Our continued denial of superior protection in recovered individuals, with or without vaccination, compared to vaccinated individuals...

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on large private businesses through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on Thursday, but upheld a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) mandate. The decision on the OSHA mandate was 6-3; the decision on the CMS mandate was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the court’s three Democratic appointees in upholding it. As Breitbart News reported last week, the Court had appeared skeptical of the mandates during oral arguments, especially the OSHA mandate, as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar struggled to identify the statutory...

Two cases will be argued today beginning at 10. National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor (OSHA Mandate) and Biden v. Missouri (Healthcare mandate) Audio here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a private medical organization founded in 1943, has the story — “Biden’s Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals’ Incentive Payments for COVID-19” (11/17/21), authored by Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. and Ali Shultz, J.D. Here are stunning excerpts: “Upon admission to a once-trusted hospital, American patients with COVID-19 become virtual prisoners, subjected to a rigid treatment protocol…for rationing medical care in those over age 50. They have a shockingly high mortality rate…” “As exposed in audio recordings, hospital executives in Arizona admitted meeting several times a week to lower standards of care, with coordinated restrictions...

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suspended enforcement of its vaccine mandate for healthcare workers after two court orders earlier this week.A memo issued by the agency, posted by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Twitter Thursday, said that CMS “remains confident” it will prevail in court but is “suspending activities related to the implementation and enforcement of this rule pending future development in the litigation.”“While these preliminary injunctions are in effect,” it continues to say, “CMS surveyors must not survey providers for compliance with the requirements” with the rule. The memo is referring to federal government...

Judge Matthew Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri issued an injunction halting President Joe Biden's Wuhan coronavirus vaccine mandate for Medicare and Medicaid workers in ten states Monday, citing a lack of approval from Congress. "The mandate requires nearly every employee, volunteer, and third-party contractor working at fifteen catogires of healthcare facilities to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID”) and to have received at least a first dose of the vaccine prior to December 6, 2021," court documents show. "Congress did not grant CMS authority to mandate the vaccine. Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their argument that Congress has...

Amid health system and state COVID-19 vaccination requirements, workers have been fired for noncompliance, and some have resigned or quit. Here are stats from 40 organizations, announced since June: Note: This list was updated Nov. 22. It is not exhaustive. 1. Crouse Health fired 45 employees because of the state vaccination mandate, the Syracuse, N.Y.-based health system confirmed to Becker's. The employees are eligible for rehire if they choose to get vaccinated. 2. Centra Health in Lynchburg, Va., fired five employees because they refused to comply with the hospital's vaccination mandate, a spokesperson confirmed to Becker's. There were also 31...

Nearly 50k Medicare patients died soon after getting COVID shot: whistleblower‘They are lying. There is no question they are lying,’ said Attorney Renz. ‘The mantra of ‘safe and effective' must stop after today’s information.’ A whistleblower has provided government data documenting 48,465 deaths within 14 days of COVID-19 vaccination among Medicare patients alone, according to medical freedom rights attorney Thomas Renz. The announcement Saturday was made by the Ohio-based attorney, who remains involved in several major cases brought against federal agencies relating to fraud and violations of medical freedom rights. In his presentation, Renz expressed his appreciation for whistleblowers who...

Dr. Bryan Ardis and Owen look at the case numbers from New York after vaccines and Remdesivir. https://banned.video/watch?id=61527826e02bfb181d6ec7f3

CMS issued an interim final rule on Aug. 25 that requires hospitals to report COVID-19 data to HHS in order to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Five things to know: 1. The emergency regulations require hospitals and critical access hospitals to report daily COVID-19 data through the HHS portal, powered by TeleTracking and Palantir, to receive payment from CMS. 2. Hospitals are required to report several data points, including the number of patients testing positive for COVID-19, ICU bed occupation and availability of ventilators and personal protective equipment. This information is essential for emergency planning and resource allocation during...

Seema Verma, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), told Breitbart News exclusively that New York’s Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democrat governors originally issued guidance that contradicted federal guidelines for nursing homes battling the coronavirus pandemic. “I just want to make it very clear that our guidance was absolutely crystal clear,” Verma said in an exclusive interview late last week. “It was clear and unmistakable. Any insinuation to the contrary is woefully mistaken at best and dishonest at worst. We put out our guidance on March 13. It’s very clear when it says that,...

Governors of both major political parties are warning that a little-noticed regulation proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration could lead to big cuts in Medicaid, reducing access to health care for low-income Americans. The arcane fiscal accountability rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, would tighten federal oversight and approval over complex financing strategies states have long used to help pay for their share of the $600 billion program. Also targeted are certain payments to hospitals that treat many low-income patients. Public comments closed last week amid a chorus of criticism from hospitals, nursing homes,...

Health insurers warned that a move by the Trump administration on Saturday to temporarily suspend a program that was set to pay out $10.4 billion to insurers for covering high-risk individuals last year could drive up premium costs and create marketplace uncertainty. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “risk adjustment” program is intended to incentivize health insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing and chronic conditions by collecting money from insurers with relatively healthy enrollees to offset the costs of other insurers with sicker ones. President Donald Trump’s administration has used its regulatory powers to undermine the ACA on multiple fronts after...

"It represents yet one more example of CMS’ ill-advised attempts to dictate what transpires in the course of the doctor-patient encounter."

As House Republicans hurtle toward shifting the nation's health-care system onto a more conservative path, nearly lost so far in the roiling debate over their plans is the profound impact they would have on insurance for the nation's poorest and most vulnerable residents. The proposed American Health Care Act would break with the government's half-century compact with states in helping to finance Medicaid, which covers 68 million low-income people, including children, pregnant women and those who are elderly or disabled.The House GOP's legislation would end the system in which the government pays each state a specific share of all its...

Seema Verma, President Donald Trump's nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (AP Photo/File) Washington -- Indian-American Seema Verma moved a step closer to being confirmed as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as a bitterly divided US Senate voted 54-44, mostly on party lines, to end a debate on her nomination. The final confirmation vote on her nomination has been scheduled for Monday evening (March 13). The Senate vote to end the debate came moments after the White House blamed the opposition Democratic lawmakers for blocking the nomination of for the...

Due to a lack of members present at a Senate Finance Committee executive session Wednesday, the committee will reconvene Thursday to vote again on the candidacy of Seema Verma for CMS administrator. Senators present at the meeting voted 9-9 on the nomination, and the final tally with proxies was 15-11 to confirm Ms. Verma as CMS administrator. However, because proxies do not count, the committee must vote again before they can send her nomination to the full Senate for a final vote. The full committee has 26 members, 14 Republican and 12 Democrat. Ms. Verma is the president, CEO and...

The government spent a breathtaking $26 million to provide dead people—who were poor when they were alive—with health insurance in one state alone, according to a new federal audit. The benefit was administered through Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the needy and the astonishing multi-million-dollar figure applies to just Florida but similar atrocities are likely occurring in other states. American taxpayers may wonder how this could possibly happen, though fraud and corruption are rampant in government, especially in welfare programs. First let’s explain how Medicaid, jointly funded by federal and state governments, functions. The Centers for Medicare &...

Republicans in Congress pledge to use the first opportunity of the Donald Trump presidency to repeal ObamaCare. Trump has met that pledge by appointing people most likely to dismantle it from the inside. First Trump appointed staunch ObamaCare opponent Rep. Tom Price to head HHS, and now he’s picked a health-industry expert to run the agency responsible for its Medicaid expansion. Seema Verma has plenty of experience in working the margins of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion to push back against it: President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday morning picked the founder and CEO of a health policy consulting firm, Seema Verma,...