Informed Choice Iowa is giving all health care workers in CMS funded health care facilities a heads up. This includes workers in long term care centers as well as hospitals.
With the Iowa House COVID-19 vaccine passport bill, health care facilities are exempt and allowed to require workers or visitors to disclose their COVID-19 vaccination status — or worse — coerce them to be vaccinated.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule that indicates they’ll require staff to disclose their status in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.
A press release states the following:
“The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule (CMS-1752-P) today for inpatient and long-term care hospitals that builds on the Biden Administration’s key priorities to close health care equity gaps and provide greater accessibility to care. Major provisions in the proposed rule would fund medical residency positions in hospitals in rural and underserved communities to address workforce shortages, and require hospitals to report COVID-19 vaccination rates among their workers to contain the spread of the virus.”
According to the Associated Press and Kaiser Family Foundation, 30-70 percent of hospital and nursing home staff do not want the vaccine.
Informed Choice Iowa said they are hopeful the Iowa Senate and Gov. Kim Reynolds stop this potential intrusion.
“They have a chance to protect the privacy and lives of our health care workers,” ICI said in a statement. “We know the Governor wants a stronger bill and we hope she will take the action necessary to protect Iowans’ rights, lives and livelihoods.”
Iowans are encouraged to call the Governor’s office at 515-281-5211 and use prompt 5. Senators can be reached at 515-281-3371 about Senate File 610.
