Let me explain it this way. The Federal government can only oversee things so far as the Federal government is concerned.
Unless the Federal government has a contract with a company, they can't mandate shit (well, that's how it should work).
But since OSHA is basically a Federal Regulatory arm of the government, the question arises if any and all companies that follow OSHA guidelines would have to be involved in the mandate, whether or not they were Federally contracted.
Today, the Courts rightly decided that the Federal government would be overstepping its bounds by demanding non-Federal-contracting companies comply with their mandates.
All of Healthcare, by contrast, is required to carry Medicare and Medicaid provisions, so they can't use the same logic as OSHA-regulated industries.
So now, Healthcare has to go through their own cases to figure out if the mandate is legal for them as well. As far as this court is concerned, Healthcare is always sucked in by the Federal Government, and so the mandate applies to them more rigidly than it would for industry. (You have to think in a frame of mind of limiting maximum damages to the grieving party. If the mandate goes out for people not federally contracted, and damages do occur, the court would be to blame for bad judgement, and all hell breaks loose Constitutionally.)
It appears others have already jumped on this and asked the 6th Circuit to fulfill an injunction on the Healthcare aspect of it as well, so it looks like we're gonna be coming back to settle this at a later date.
The courts did as they should in this case.
The only fear is in if they were too heavy-handed with their reasoning and provide Trojan Horse precedent in their statements for other adjacent cases, such as the Abortion cases on the docket.
Kinda yeah, kinda no. Again, politicians constantly put in loopholes to benefit their own interests.
You're not really an "employee" but if you want to work for them, you gotta do as they say exactly.
This also counts for subsidies, so keep that in mind. I'm not sure if this case specifically talks about subsidized parties to the Federal government as well.
If so, then this is far more of a MAJOR ruling than it first appears. It means any company getting handouts from the government can't hide behind the mandate either. It doesn't affect their own private company policies for workplace health criteria, but it is a good wall to stop the FED from saying all people on Government aid need to do what they say.
This case today is just the foot in the door. The rest of this stuff still needs to be ironed out, up until deciding whether or not the Federal Government has ANY say in Personal Health Decisions.
Now that undercuts abortion cases as well, so think hard about what it could mean if the Government comes out and says "The Federal Government has no say in the medical decisions of a private or contracted individual."
That opens the door for a solidification of Roe v Wade under the pretense that women's health and the "right" to the "medical" procedure of abortion cannot be restrained by the Federal Government.
Spun another way, it could also provide that since the Federal Government has no business in Private Health Decisions, they have no basis to legally subsidize abortion with tax-payer monies.
This is a rocky ground we just came upon. It can go either way very quickly, so don't be surprised if anything they do now comes back to haunt another decision later down the rope.