Lawsuits Against Hospitals Begin for Loss of Employment due to Mandatory Flu Shots

As we reported earlier, a Michigan nurse has filed a $100 million class action lawsuit against the hospital that fired her for refusing a flu vaccine as a requirement for employment. So we did some research and we found out that there are lawsuits around the country currently in litigation from healthcare workers who have lost their jobs as a result of refusing the seasonal flu vaccine. We report on a few here. As we have previously reported, the recent move by hospitals to become so strict over requiring their employees (whether they have contact with patients or not) to receive the flu vaccine, is due to a provision in the new Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) that states health care facilities must have 90% of their employees vaccinated for the flu or lose federal reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid. That amount was 1% in 2013 and is reportedly going to increase up to 2% by 2017. So now that the avalanche of lawsuits has begun against health care facilities for terminating employment based on flu vaccine status, or requiring people to wear a mask the entire flu season, the financial question they will need to consider is whether the potential one to two percent loss in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement is enough to cover all their legal fees in trying to mandate the flu vaccine against desire of their employees, and the ensuing litigation that could result from terminating employment or forcing them to wear masks. Of course, President Obama has rewritten so many aspects of the Affordable Health Care Act, that maybe he could just step in and strike out the clause that penalizes health care facilities for not having 90% of their employees vaccinated for the flu. Or is the pharmaceutical lobby too powerful to allow that to happen?