Vern Buchanan leads letter pushing back on health care vaccine mandate

Vern Buchanan.

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan led a Republican letter fighting the Joe Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Medicare and Medicaid service providers.

In a letter co-written with Indiana Republican Larry Bucshon and signed by 113 other members of the House, the Longboat Key Republican urged Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to drop the requirement to avoid a workforce dilemma.

“Ensuring continuity of quality care should be the primary goal for CMS, especially during this period of stress and uncertainty for patients and providers,” Buchanan said. “This mandate could eviscerate the size and strength of our health care system and lead to unintended consequences for America’s seniors, many of whom rely on Medicare as their only option for health care coverage.”

The federal mandate requires health care workers to be vaccinated or obtain a legitimate exemption by Jan. 4.

Notably, Sarasota Memorial Health Care system in Buchanan’s home district announced last month it would enforce the mandate despite a challenge being waged by the state of Florida against the federal regulation. But Buchanan said he’s most concerned about the impact the rule could have on small doctors’ offices that could be crippled if they must lay off just a small number of unvaccinated employees.

“We fully support your agency’s goal of ‘(e)nsuring patient safety and protection,’ but if seniors are unable to access care because their provider no longer participates in the Medicare program, this rule will undermine its stated goal,” the letter reads.

“By subjecting providers to egregious federal overreach, our nation’s most vulnerable populations will be at risk and America’s seniors will bear the brunt of any provider loss due to non-compliance with this heavy-handed and constitutionally dubious vaccine mandate.”

Most Republicans in Florida’s congressional delegation signed onto the letter, including U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Kat Cammack, Mario Diaz-Balart, Byron Donalds, Neal Dunn, Scott Franklin, Carlos Gimenez, Brian Mast, Bill Posey, John Rutherford, Greg Steube, Mike Waltz and Dan Webster.