Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is going after healthcare institutions for refusing to treat patients who were not vaccinated against Covid-19.
Earlier this week, Paul introduced legislation preventing healthcare facilities that denied unvaccinated people treatment, including organ transplants, from receiving taxpayer dollars.
Under the "Covid-19 Vaccination Non-Discrimination Act," patients will also be protected to make decisions about their health without being penalized.
"No American should be denied access to critical care based on a personal medical decision, yet tragically, many hospitals and other medical facilities continue to discriminate against those unvaccinated for COVID-19," Paul said to Fox News Digital. "The COVID-19 Vaccination Non-Discrimination Act will protect the rights of vulnerable patients to make their own health care choices and ensure that federal taxpayer dollars do not support facilities that turn away patients based on their COVID-19 vaccination status."
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) called the notion of withholding medical care based on their vaccination status an "injustice."
"There is no reason that medical facilities should deny care to people based on their Covid-19 vaccination status, and there is certainly no reason for institutions that do so to receive any federal funding," Bishop said, who introduced the legislation in the House.
One case that has stood out is a 14-year-old girl in North Carolina who was denied a kidney transplant from Duke University Hospital because she was not vaccinated against Covid.
Her mother stated that the hospital told her her child would not be getting the transplant because she wasn't vaccinated.
"I said, 'so basically you're telling us if she does not get the vaccine, then she's not getting a transplant,'" the mother recalled saying. The hospital told her, "yes, that is the one thing holding us up."