By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The State of Kansas is still challenging the federal CMS vaccine mandate, but Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt wants help from Gov. Laura Kelly since the mandate has been allowed to go on while the case continues.
"The problem with that, as we've talked about before, is that, especially in small, rural communities, where there's not a large labor pool and where many of these facilities were already in crisis staffing, they were down substantially because they couldn't find people to work there," Schmidt said. "They've lost more during the pandemic from burnout. If the federal government essentially pushes another group of nurses and workers out of those facilities because either they quit or they are terminated because they won't get the shot, the effect is to close some of those facilities or have to shrink their capacity, neither of which is good for access to care in our rural communities."
Schmidt wants the Kelly administration to apply for a waiver from the requirements for small facilities in crisis settings.
"There's nothing in the specific mandate that talks about waivers," Schmidt said. "There is general authority of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to, in effect, grant waivers, to provide relief from regulatory requirements, if there are certain findings, such as the requirements are going to result in damaging health care access in particular markets."
Governors in West Virginia, Virginia and Montana have asked CMS for this flexibility. Those states all have Republican governors.
"We know we disagree with the Biden administration and they disagree with us," Schmidt said. "That will have to play out in court in the big picture. Surely, we can agree that in some of these very small communities where the choice is either allow a small number of unvaccinated staff to work or your facility is going to shut down temporarily or permanently and then everybody in a nursing home is out of a place to live, everybody in the community has no access to health care, surely, in those crisis situations, we can agree that the secretary should exercise that discretion and allow more flexibility."
CMS has not appeared to budge on the mandate anywhere at this point.