Hey everyone,
In the wake of Biden’s vaccine “mandate,” I was considering the costs which would be imposed on businesses with more than 100 employees. As a brief aside, from what I’ve read, under current statutory law this action is permissible and likely to pass court scrutiny. The issue arises from whether this action ought to be permitted under the Constitution. As someone who dislikes the administrative state (and finds parts of it to be at odds with original intent), I suspect that one avenue would be to argue that Congress shouldn’t be able to grant such wide-ranging powers to administrative agencies, and in doing so, the court could develop some limiting principle. In any case, this action would impose some significant costs on businesses. One question I have is how this would affect small businesses with at least 100 employees. Obviously, businesses who have already made vaccination a requirement for employment would not be affected in the way businesses without a company mandate would. I also suspect that large firms with the ability to absorb the costs of regulation support the administration’s actions since it would mean a greater costs for their smaller competitors. According to USA Today, many smaller businesses are concerned about worker shortages (Davidson, 2021). Mehtab Bhogal, a co-CEO of Forever Floral, estimates he’ll lose nearly 30% of his workforce because he cannot “absorb the cost of weekly testing and likely would only hire vaccinated job candidates” (Davidson, 2021). Even so, according to Davidson (2021), there’s still a great deal of gray area regarding implementation and who will bear what costs. What I’m curious about is whether you think the vaccine could have been more effectively distributed through market processes. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that the vaccine rollout has been bungled, at least in part, due to poor government messaging. I also discovered that under the Emergency Use Authorization, companies were prevented from advertising their products (Lee, 2021). Now that Pfizer has been fully approved by the FDA, it is no longer bound by this prohibition (Lee, 2021). Is it reasonable to think that the companies could do a better job promoting and dispelling fears or has this issue been so polluted by politics that it wouldn’t matter? Thanks!
Sean
References
Davidson, P. (2021, September 12). Some businesses welcome Biden’s vaccination mandate while others worry about the costs, effects on worker shortages. USA TODAY. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/09/12/biden-vaccine-mandate-u-s-businesses-have-mixed-reaction-order/8281858002/
Lee, E. (2021, August 4). Fact check: COVID-19 vaccine isn’t advertised on TV due to emergency authorization. USA TODAY. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/04/fact-check-covid-19-vaccine-isnt-advertised-tv-due-euas/5447465001/
Good afternoon, Sean. After reading your post, I was reminded how similar the issues are concerning the mandate and the issues concerning Obamacare. Back when Obamacare passed, along with the individual mandate, small businesses were required to insure their workers after a certain threshold was met. As a result, small businesses stopped hiring individuals at a certain threshold. From a practical standpoint, businesses in this mandate have the same issue and may stagnate hiring as well.
Sean,
You made an interesting point in that what with the mandate, smaller companies are at a greater disadvantage than bigger companies in affording the costs of everyone's becoming vaccinated, though of course all companies are affected by it, resulting, again, in the government interfering in economics, and that it'll become more beneficial in some aspects, by the smaller companies, to only hire people who have already been vaccinated. I wonder if this will then result in growing discrimination in the job market about hiring those vaccinated over those who have chosen to go unvaccinated. As to your question, from personal experience with people, I know that the question of vaccines does not always have to do with fear or politics, for those who have decided against it. Sometimes, it's simply personal beliefs, and how they have chosen to take care of their bodies. Additionally, it could be argued that there is a portion of the population who would just be as fine without the vaccine as with it, in regards to the body's immune system. We were talking the other day in my microbiology class about those who have had the virus already being at a far greater advantage than those who have been vaccinated. For the vaccine helps the body create antibodies for only one type of the virus's proteins (i.e. the spike protein), while those who have had the virus have protection against all of the virus's proteins, as a result of having been exposed to the entire virus. I wonder, then, if society's decision makers will take this into consideration when creating policies that will impact everyone.
While I am definitely not an expert on the situation I would like to point out that many pharmacies, like cvs, are giving out free COVID tests. And although it is a hassle to have to get one every week I have experienced going to the same cvs over and over again without ever paying a dime(other than gas costs). i fully agree that ”Mandating” workers to get the vaccine is completely ridiculous and goes against a person‘s rights to choose what is good for themselves. Currentl, there are options, limited but available, for workers to take other than getting the vaccine. I am curious to see if there are any statistics on your statement about the overall costs for companies. I think that would likely be a large factor in the discussio.