Freedom for Health Care Workers Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAMMACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 497, the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act. This bill would repeal the Federal CMS mandate imposed on healthcare workers nationwide.

On December 4, 2020, then-President-elect Joe Biden was asked pointblank if he would mandate COVID-19 vaccines for Americans. His answer? ``No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it be mandatory.''

Well, as we came to find out and have since learned, you can't take him at his word. By September 2021, the President's tone and position on vaccine mandates did a complete 180. He said that he was getting impatient and ``frustrated'' with unvaccinated Americans. He went so far as to call it ``a pandemic of the unvaccinated.''

Mr. President, I hate to break it to you, but the American people do not exist to please you or any President for that matter. We don't simply comply because you are ``frustrated.'' Yet, it was his impatience that led to this vaccine mandate.

I don't know about you, but I am not sure where in the Constitution the government's powers over one's personal health decisions can be found, but apparently, those signs that we see so often, particularly outside the Supreme Court Chamber in bold letters screaming, ``My Body, My Choice,'' are only applicable when it is a certain political agenda.

What we do know is that the Biden administration's authoritarian COVID-19 vaccine mandate on our dedicated medical professionals is an absolute abuse of power. It is an attack on the personal freedoms of our frontline workers, and it has certainly unnecessarily exacerbated the healthcare workforce shortage.

This bears repeating: We are not anti-vaccine. We are anti-mandate. If you want the vaccine, great. Take it. If you don't, then don't. It shouldn't be mandated.

As many of you in this Chamber know, my husband serves our local community as a firefighter paramedic. At the height of COVID, as he was showing up--not staying home--and continually responding to 911 calls of folks who were getting sick, not once did a patient ask if he was vaccinated. Not once did they demand that the firefighters who showed up be vaccinated.

When they did answer the call, they went with honor and diligence, and they continued to do their job. Not once did they ask if that patient was vaccinated. Not once did fellow firefighters ask my husband if he was vaccinated.

Likewise, as the hospitals filled up, doctors, nurses, medics, and EMTs were working double and triple overtime, taking care of the sick, comforting people who had been left to take their last breath alone as families were left outside. They never once demanded a vaccinated doctor, never once asked for a vaccinated nurse. They were doing their jobs taking care of them because that is what they do. These are the frontline workers, and it is time we stand up for them.

Today, in every congressional district in America, hospitals are struggling with staffing shortages. We can address these shortages by looking to the thousands of healthcare workers who were fired or left their job because of this mandate.

Let's stand up to the Big Government, one-size-fits-all power grab. It is wrong. It ends today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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