NH House Committee Approves Sweeping Ban on Vaccine Mandates
Education Committee Chairman Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, introduces his amendment barring any employer, government entity, or anyone else from compelling vaccination, claiming that doing so is a violation of absolute unalienable rights, before portrait of Washington, who mandated soldiers in the Continental Army receive smallpox vaccines. (Photo and caption credit: TimothyC @Granitepolitics)
When I think back to the early days of this pandemic, it is difficult to understand how we have arrived a place where politics, partisanship, and tribalism seem to be winning out over what once was a common goal—ending the pandemic.
But here we are.
On Tuesday, a bill that would ban all New Hampshire employers from making COVID vaccinations a condition of employment passed the New Hampshire House Education Committee 11-8 after an eyeopening public hearing. (Full disclosure: I was subbing on the committee for a member who was ill and voted to oppose the bill).
While the hearing brought out unmasked anti-vax supporters in droves, it also brought out representatives of the Business and Industry Association, the New Hampshire Medical Society, the New Hampshire Nurses Association, the New Hampshire Hospital Association, and even the YMCA. All spoke against the bill.
As you read this, keep in mind that COVID hospitalizations have reached their highest levels since early January, the seven day average of new cases is up 22%, and COVID has claimed 9 more lives. On Tuesday, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital alone was treating 34 COVID patients. 30 of the patients being treated were unvaccinated. Eight hospital employees have also tested positive and the emergency room is now at 130% capacity.
While recent approval of the Pfizer vaccine for use in children ages 5-11 will help address one of the largest remaining unvaccinated populations, the simple fact remains that not enough people have been vaccinated in New Hampshire to confer anything close to herd immunity on our population.
In the absence of herd immunity, circumstances remain ideal for the ongoing spread of the Delta variant—and the development of new and more dangerous variants—both in people who are unvaccinated and in those whose vaccinations are losing their effectiveness over time and haven’t received booster shots. (As for the argument that vaccination is unnecessary for unvaccinated people who have already been infected and recovered, the CDC isn’t buying it. Turns out unvaccinated people who have had COVID are more than twice as likely to get it again than fully vaccinated people.)
According to Dr. Gary Sobelson, who is president of both the NH Medical Society and the NH Academy of Family Physicians, workplace vaccination requirements have been effective, increasing vaccine rates by as much as a third and have reduced the risk to staff and patients alike. While Sobelson testified that everyone has the right to bodily autonomy and to make their own decisions regarding treatment, he said that during a pandemic those decisions must come with consequences. “Individuals have to make that decision and they absolutely can be given the information of the consequences of that decision,” he said. “In this case, the consequences would be job loss. It is similar to someone refusing an operation for appendicitis. They accept the consequences of that decision. I think in this particular case, the decision not to get vaccinated, these are not unreasonable consequences in the medical profession’s viewpoint.”
HB 255 as amended and approved by the committee would prohibit “entities” including private businesses, medical facilities, elder care facilities, schools, clubs, and even religious organizations from compelling vaccinations. There are no exceptions. It also would strip hospitals of their ability to comply with the Nov. 5 emergency rule from CMS requiring eligible staff at healthcare facilities to be vaccinated. This would deny all hospitals in NH any Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement—a financial death blow.
In addition to the drama that took place in front of the cameras, a different drama took place behind the scenes. Knowing that the vote was likely to be close, House Speaker Sherman Packard took the unprecedented step of transferring a Republican member of the Education Committee known to be waffling on the bill to the Fish & Game Committee on the morning of the hearing. Along with GOP Majority Leader Jason Osborne, both were present in the room during the executive session in order to ensure the remaining GOP members voted to pass the bill.
HB 255 now moves on to the full House for a vote in early January. If it passes, which it is likely to in a body full of of faux freedom lovers and science deniers content to risk their own lives (and yours), it will then move on to the Senate where it faces a less certain future.
On the plus side, Gov. Sununu, who has no love for vaccination mandates, has publicly defended the right of private employers to require worker vaccinations. On the other hand, he has also spoken out frequently against vaccine mandates and signed a bill earlier in the year that prevents local governments, schools, and state universities from requiring vaccinations for people using their services. Also worth noting is that the governor also has a long history of saying one thing (for example, “I’m pro-choice”) while then proceeding to do something very different (such as signing the most restrictive abortion ban in NH history along with a mandatory requirement that any woman seeking an abortion first go through an invasive and unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound procedure at her own expense).
This was a sad day for New Hampshire and anyone who truly would like to see our state and our communities be able to return to normal after 18 months of COVID.