California Senate Passes $25 Minimum Wage for Healthcare Workers

A $25 minimum wage bill for healthcare workers was passed on Wednesday in the California Senate. The partisan bill did not receive a single Republican vote in its 21-11 passage. Authored by Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), and championed by the Service Employees International Union, the bill proposes to increase the state’s minimum wage for healthcare workers.

Healthcare workers at general acute care hospitals, acute psychiatric hospitals, medical offices and clinics, behavioral health centers, dialysis clinics and residential care centers as well as as certified nursing assistants, patient aides, technicians, and food service workers, among many others can all expect a wage increase, if the bill becomes law. All paid work performed on the premises of any covered health care facility, regardless of the identity of the employer qualifies for the increase.

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Gov. Reynolds Announces Funding to Train Teachers, Health Care Workers, Aircraft Techs

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

Several career-focused educational grants and funding opportunities were announced last week for Iowa institutions.

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced funding initiatives in her 2022 Condition of the State Address, including the first-in-the nation Teacher and Paraeducator Registered Apprenticeship Grant Program.

Through the program, current high school students can earn paraeducator certificates and associates degrees, and paraeducators can earn their bachelor’s degree while learning and working in the classroom. The program starts in the 2022-2023 school year.

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Tea Party Patriots and Job Creators Network Praise Supreme Court Ruling on Biden’s OSHA Vaccine Mandate

Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA) and the Job Creators Network (JCN) praised the ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court that prohibited President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses.

The mandate, which would have been enacted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, could have forced businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate the vaccine or weekly testing.

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Supreme Court Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for U.S. Workers, Allows Mandate for Healthcare Workers

Supreme Court with a cherry blossom in the foreground

In a Thursday afternoon ruling, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s OSHA vaccine mandate that would apply to American workers.

The court allowed a separate policy, that requires vaccinations for most health-care workers at facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding, to stand.

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Nurses Blast New CDC Emergency Guidance That Allows Healthcare Workers Infected with COVID to Return to Work

Healthcare worker in hair net and mask

Healthcare workers are up in arms over a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emergency guidance that allows healthcare workers who have had “higher risk exposures” to COVID, and even those infected with COVID to return to work after a five day quarantine as long as they’re asymptomatic.

Nurses groups are condemning the CDC’s guidance as  “potentially dangerous” for both workers and patients.

Earlier this month, the CDC issued the alert to health care workers across the United States as a “contingency” plan for anticipated staffing shortages due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by Maine Healthcare Workers Challenging Vaccine Mandate

Healthcare workers

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Maine healthcare workers attempting to block the state’s vaccine mandate.

The group of unvaccinated workers argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights because the law doesn’t have a religious exemption.

According to the Associated Press, Maine is one of three states including New York and Rhode Island that have vaccine mandates that lack religious exemptions for healthcare workers.

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Millions of COVID-19 Vaccines Have Yet to Be Used Since First U.S. Distribution

Over 9 million COVID-19 vaccines have yet to be administered in the U.S. since they were initially distributed on Dec. 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of the 12,409,050 doses of the vaccines that have been distributed, only 2,794,588 have been administered as of Wednesday morning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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New York Gov. Cuomo Tells Hero Healthcare Workers Who Traveled There to Save Coronavirus Patients Now Must Pay State Income Taxes

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who once pled for an influx of healthcare workers to treat COVID-19, now says they have to pay up for the privilege of having worked there to treat the coronavirus.

Cuomo said out-of-state medical professionals who volunteered to help his state owe income taxes, Fox News said. That applies even if they stayed on the payroll in their home states. However, only workers who stayed in New York for more than 14 days are on the hook.

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DeWine Thanks President Trump for Approving Plan for Battelle to Sterilize Hundreds of Thousands of Protective Masks

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted on Sunday thanked President Trump and Dr. Stephen Hahn of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approving a plan to sterilize N95 masks to fight the coronavirus.

Earlier Sunday, DeWine called an emergency press conference to express his “deep disappointment” with the FDA for limiting the use of the new technology, The Ohio Star reported.

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Think Tank Calls for Ohio Government to Take Common-Sense Measures to Fight Coronavirus and Aid in Economic Recovery

A new policy brief lays out actions that Ohio policymakers can immediately implement so Ohio can fight and yet recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and it doesn’t involve unilaterally moving primaries or shutting down businesses.

The Buckeye Institute released the brief on Monday.

The brief, Policy Solutions for the Pandemic: How Ohio Can Fight the Impact of Coronavirus, is available here.

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