A pair of Idaho Supreme Court cases that Saint Alphonsus and St. Luke's hospitals won on May 19 greatly expands the medical procedures that taxpayers have to cover. The additional bills could run into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, with no ceiling.
The fleecing of taxpayers comes just as Saint Alphonsus, St. Luke's, and Primary Health have opted to treat their employees, vendors, and volunteers as human guinea pigs by making them get the highly experimental China virus vaccine in order to work at their facilities.
Whether now or this winter, lawmakers should take a closer look at how Idaho government has aided the establishment of a medical monopoly that has shielded it from real-world market forces. Such favorable treatment includes tax exemptions on sales, property, and income and multiple lucrative local, state, and federal revenue streams.
If I were a conservative lawmaker, I might be concerned that my vote for Medicaid or county indigent funds gives medical providers a bunch of money that frees them to implement vaccine mandates that threaten the health and financial wellbeing of their own dedicated employees. I might be concerned that such authoritarianism is being bankrolled by taxpayers, including the affected employees and contractors. I might vote against giving them more additional leverage to undermine a person’s God-given right to self-determination.
Lawmakers have one basic job that must be done every year, and that's to pass a budget. The more conservative House of Representatives could at least take a page from last legislative session’s playbook, wherein the House flatly rejected education budgets until there was agreement to address social justice indoctrination.
Some lawmakers might simply want to forbid the state from contracting with entities that impose a vaccine mandate, and that might be justifiable in the short-term defense of health freedom. There is a legitimate concern that such a policy could be used to compel anti-freedom action in the future, such as a statute requiring all practitioners to inquire about gun ownership as a condition for securing a state contract.
Other legislators have talked about prohibiting employers from asking about a person’s vaccination status. The downside is that such a law could become a blueprint for Big Government causes, such as the recent effort to block employers from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history.
Yet there are viable options consistent with free market principles and the role of legislators as guardians of the state's treasury. Doing nothing is not an option. An impending multimillion dollar price tag for a couple of Supreme Court cases only serves to feed the beasts that are doing real damage to people whose careers and health are on the line.
In the meantime, I hope the people won’t wait for or depend on politicians to do something. St. Al’s, St. Luke’s, and Primary Health have acted with tremendous callousness, and that deserves a meaningful, immediate response from everyone hurt by the CCP vaccine mandate.
Take your business elsewhere. All of us should stand united in opposition to vaccine mandates, whether pushed by politicians or by overzealous hospitals and clinics.
