Federal court halts implementation of CMS vaccine mandate

We recently provided an update on COVID-19 vaccine requirements in Arkansas (see “Where Arkansas stands on COVID-19 vaccination mandates”). One source of the new rules is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which has mandated vaccinations for workers and volunteers at all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities. More recently, a federal court stayed (halted) the implementation of the regulation in Arkansas and nine other states challenging the rule until a final determination can be reached on the merits of their lawsuit.

10 states sue to block CMS regulation

Ten states (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) sued President Joe Biden and the CMS in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, challenging the CMS’s authority to issue the regulation.

As part of the suit, the states asked the court to prohibit the regulation’s implementation until after the final decision on the merits of their challenge. On November 29, 2021, the court granted the request.

Court says states likely to prevail on the merits

In a strongly worded 32-page opinion, the court applied the test for granting a preliminary injunction and decided the states were likely to prevail on the merits for the following reasons: