BTR1701
2021-04-04 22:22:40 UTC
The state denying health care treatment to people based on the color of
their skin? Who thinks this is remotely constitutional? Raise your hand.
Yes, moviePig, you can put yours down. Your agreement with this
neo-racism was anticipated.
I was going to ask what criteria the state will be using to determine
who is actually white and non-white, but then I noticed that it only
says you have to *identify* as non-white, so a white person could
presumably say they identify as black and get the jab.
-----------------------
Vermont is prioritizing non-white people for vaccine eligibility over
the state's white residents, provoking no small amount of controversy
and constitutional concerns.
On Thursday, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott announced on Twitter that anyone
aged 16 or older who identifies as black, indigenous, or a person of
color, or lives in a household with someone who does, can get a COVID-19
vaccine.
That would seem to disadvantage the state residents who are white and
don't live with anyone identifying as non-white. The state currently
restricts vaccine eligibility for those people to those 50 years and
older, unless they qualify for a vaccine by virtue of being a health
care worker, employed in public safety, having a high-risk health
condition, or being a parent or caregiver of someone with a high-risk
health condition.
Mark Levine, the state's health commissioner, told VTDigger that people
of color are being prioritized for the vaccine because of their higher
rates of COVID-19 and lower rates of vaccination.
All Vermonters 16 or older, white or not, should be able to register for
a vaccine appointment by April 19, said Levine.
Some 34% of Vermont's population has received at least one vaccine dose,
making it the ninth most vaccinated state in the country. It ranks
middle of the pack in how many of its allocated vaccines it's actually
administered.
The prioritization of vaccine eligibility along explicitly racial lines
is unconstitutional, argues Cato Institute legal expert Walter Olson in
a December 2020 op-ed for The Detriot News written in response to the
Department of Veterans Affairs opening up vaccines to black, Asian,
Native American, and Hispanic veterans.
"This runs into the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says
citizens of all races are entitled to the equal protection of the laws.
The Supreme Court has long interpreted this to mean that the government
may ordinarily not dole out valuable benefits, or impose harms, based on
a citizen's race," writes Olson.
It's true that people of color are more likely to be frontline workers
or have health conditions that make them more at risk of COVID-19
complications and death. However, directing vaccines to those
higher-risk people can, and should, still be done through race-neutral
categorization, says Olson.
"Many sensible priority rules do incidentally protect relatively more
minority persons-- and that's fine, so long as the decision is based on
the neutral grounds rather than being a pretext aimed at getting results
based on race," he writes.
All these problems identified with the V.A.'s policy would also apply to
Vermont's vaccination racial preferences.
In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC)
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to prioritize
essential workers over the elderly for vaccine distribution, in part, on
the grounds that the elderly skew white, reports The Washington Free
Beacon.
The fact that we have COVID-19 vaccines that are both safe and effective
is a true miracle of modern medicine. Getting them in as many arms as
possible should be public policy goal number one. That is only
undermined when public health officials at any level of government start
creating arbitrary, racially discriminatory, and likely unconstitutional
categories for who can get a vaccine next.
https://reason.com/2021/04/02/vermont-is-prioritizing-bipoc-households-fo
r-vaccines-thats-almost-certainly-unconstitutional/
their skin? Who thinks this is remotely constitutional? Raise your hand.
Yes, moviePig, you can put yours down. Your agreement with this
neo-racism was anticipated.
I was going to ask what criteria the state will be using to determine
who is actually white and non-white, but then I noticed that it only
says you have to *identify* as non-white, so a white person could
presumably say they identify as black and get the jab.
-----------------------
Vermont is prioritizing non-white people for vaccine eligibility over
the state's white residents, provoking no small amount of controversy
and constitutional concerns.
On Thursday, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott announced on Twitter that anyone
aged 16 or older who identifies as black, indigenous, or a person of
color, or lives in a household with someone who does, can get a COVID-19
vaccine.
That would seem to disadvantage the state residents who are white and
don't live with anyone identifying as non-white. The state currently
restricts vaccine eligibility for those people to those 50 years and
older, unless they qualify for a vaccine by virtue of being a health
care worker, employed in public safety, having a high-risk health
condition, or being a parent or caregiver of someone with a high-risk
health condition.
Mark Levine, the state's health commissioner, told VTDigger that people
of color are being prioritized for the vaccine because of their higher
rates of COVID-19 and lower rates of vaccination.
All Vermonters 16 or older, white or not, should be able to register for
a vaccine appointment by April 19, said Levine.
Some 34% of Vermont's population has received at least one vaccine dose,
making it the ninth most vaccinated state in the country. It ranks
middle of the pack in how many of its allocated vaccines it's actually
administered.
The prioritization of vaccine eligibility along explicitly racial lines
is unconstitutional, argues Cato Institute legal expert Walter Olson in
a December 2020 op-ed for The Detriot News written in response to the
Department of Veterans Affairs opening up vaccines to black, Asian,
Native American, and Hispanic veterans.
"This runs into the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says
citizens of all races are entitled to the equal protection of the laws.
The Supreme Court has long interpreted this to mean that the government
may ordinarily not dole out valuable benefits, or impose harms, based on
a citizen's race," writes Olson.
It's true that people of color are more likely to be frontline workers
or have health conditions that make them more at risk of COVID-19
complications and death. However, directing vaccines to those
higher-risk people can, and should, still be done through race-neutral
categorization, says Olson.
"Many sensible priority rules do incidentally protect relatively more
minority persons-- and that's fine, so long as the decision is based on
the neutral grounds rather than being a pretext aimed at getting results
based on race," he writes.
All these problems identified with the V.A.'s policy would also apply to
Vermont's vaccination racial preferences.
In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC)
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to prioritize
essential workers over the elderly for vaccine distribution, in part, on
the grounds that the elderly skew white, reports The Washington Free
Beacon.
The fact that we have COVID-19 vaccines that are both safe and effective
is a true miracle of modern medicine. Getting them in as many arms as
possible should be public policy goal number one. That is only
undermined when public health officials at any level of government start
creating arbitrary, racially discriminatory, and likely unconstitutional
categories for who can get a vaccine next.
https://reason.com/2021/04/02/vermont-is-prioritizing-bipoc-households-fo
r-vaccines-thats-almost-certainly-unconstitutional/