DESIGNER

Leo Johnson

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Article text courtesy of nytimes.com

Biden Tests Limits of Presidential Power in Pushing Vaccinations

 

White House officials said the president was “committed to pulling every lever possible” in the fight against the pandemic.

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s far-reaching assertion of executive authority to require Covid-19 vaccines for 100 million American workers relies on a set of complicated legal tools that will test the power — and the limits — of the federal government to compel personal health care decisions.

To more aggressively confront the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Biden is pulling several levers of presidential power: He is using an emergency provision in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970; he is threatening to withhold federal funding from hospitals and other health care organizations; and he is embracing his authority as chief executive of the sprawling federal work force and its contractors.