Joy Pullmann of the Federalist highlights growing concern about a measure on Capitol Hill involving COVID vaccines.
A bill that passed the House last week to “expand” and connect state vaccine registries faced swift blowback from constituents of the 80 Republicans and 214 Democrats who voted for the bill. H.R. 550 is now in the Senate after going straight to a vote with no hearing in the House under a common suspension of rules for bills expected to face little opposition.
If passed, the bill would have federal health agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control “award grants” to state and local health departments to “improv[e] the secure bidirectional exchange of immunization record data among Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial governmental entities and non-governmental entities.” The bill would also pay local governments to further “real-time immunization record data exchange and reporting, to support rapid identification of immunization coverage gaps.”
Tucker Carlson helped fan fury over the bill by featuring on his show last week a Republican primary candidate in Washington state who has made it a feature of his campaign.
“Eighty Republicans just voted with Democrats to pass a bill to fund a government vaccine database,” Carlson said. “Think we need that? If the law passes, it would expand the CDC’s powers. Think we need that? They’re now an intel agency. And the database would be used among other things to remind patients when they were due for a recommended vaccine.”
Republican constituents did “light up” representatives over the issue. Rep. Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican, posted a Facebook Live video Monday responding to constituent concerns about the bill and explaining why she was one of 130 Republicans to vote against it even though all present House Democrats and 80 Republicans voted for it.
