Hospitals, public agencies and other employers in Louisiana could face fines of up to $50,000 for mandating the COVID-19 vaccine, under a bill the state House endorsed in a 70-31 vote Wednesday.
House Bill 87, by Rep. Michael Echols, R-Monroe, also would bar many employers from enforcing mask mandates as a way to prevent the spread of COVID-19, though it lays out exceptions to that rule for hospitals, nursing facilities, prisons, doctors’ offices and licensed emergency medical responders.
The proposal still requires approval from the Senate.
“If you want to do business here, don’t pass these crazy mandates onto your employees,” Echols said Friday.
“This is a simple swing of the pendulum back to logic and reason based on three years of government overreach,” he added. Echols said he did not think businesses would see the law itself as government overreach.
If the bill passes, the state Attorney General’s Office would investigate complaints about employers who enacted mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Louisiana employees, even if those employers are headquartered out of state. The state would fine small businesses that violate the ban $10,000 while large businesses and public employers would face $50,000 fines.
The bill is one of several filed this session that take aim at COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Several similar bills filed in past years were vetoed under then-Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, but Echols and other lawmakers in the Republican-led Legislature appear eager this year to get them to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.
An earlier version of Echols’ proposal did not ban such mandates but instead allowed employees to sue their employer from mandating the COVID-19 vaccine if the vaccine resulted in injury.
Echols reworked the bill after it faced pushback from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state’s powerful pro-business lobby, and narrowly failed to pass the House. With little debate, the revised bill easily won enough votes in the House Wednesday, sailing through to the Senate.
LABI did not return a request for comment Friday.
Under Echols’ revised bill, hospitals and nursing facilities would be banned from issuing mandates unless the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services demands that they do so, but the mandates could still apply to doctors’ offices and emergency medical responders. Echols said the intent of the bill was to only give the latter types of providers exceptions in the case of a federal mandate, and he may clean up the bill language before it goes to the Senate.
Asked if he had concerns about whether such a ban would impact hospitals’ abilities to protect vulnerable patients, Echols said that idea was “highly illogical” because the COVID-19 vaccine “does not reduce the spread” of the virus.
The scientific community overwhelmingly agrees that the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the chances of contracting the virus, though it is not foolproof. The vaccine also reduces the risk of serious illness in cases where COVID-19 is contracted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A spokesperson for Ochsner Health said the company would not be able to make someone available for an interview before the weekend.