
Louisiana health care provider to charge benefits coverage fee for employees with unvaccinated partners
CNN
Ochsner Health, Louisiana's largest non-profit health care system, says it will charge employees enrolled in its 2022 health care benefits program a fee for spouses and domestic partners who are not vaccinated against Covid-19.
The fee is similar to what has been in place for tobacco users and is in line with the benefits offered by other health care organizations and companies, Ochsner's President and CEO Warner Thomas said in a statement this week.
"This is not a mandate as non-employed spouses and domestic partners can choose to select a health plan outside of Ochsner Health offerings. As with our employee vaccination policy, spouses and domestic partners with medical and religious objections will be able to file exemption requests," the CEO said.

Hundreds of Border Patrol officers are mobilizing to bolster the president’s crackdown on immigration in snowy Minneapolis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday, as tensions between federal law enforcement and local counterparts flare after an ICE-involved shooting last week left a mother of three dead.

Nationwide outcry over the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent spilled into the streets of cities across the US on Saturday, with protesters demanding the removal of federal immigration authorities from their communities and justice for the slain Renee Good.

Since early December the US Coast Guard and other military branches have boarded and taken control of five oil ships that had previously been sanctioned, all either accused of being in the process of transporting Venezuelan oil or on their way to take on oil that has been subject to US sanctions since President Donald Trump began a pressure campaign against the leadership of the country during his first term.










