An Iowa woman who quit her job selling medical respiratory products after refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine is not entitled to unemployment benefits, a judge has ruled.
In January, Anne Wagner quit her job with the medical supplier Lincare, where she had worked for 13 years selling respirator products to assisted living facilities, medical clinics and hospitals.
From the beginning of her employment, Wagner had participated in Lincare’s employer-sponsored, BlueCross-BlueShield health insurance program. In October 2021, Lincare sent an email to all employees noting that a $50 surcharge, imposed each pay period, would be added to the health care coverage costs of any workers who were not vaccinated against COVID-19. Exceptions were allowed for those who claimed that medical conditions or deeply held religious beliefs barred them from getting the vaccine.
While continued health care coverage was contingent on employees either getting the vaccination or paying the surcharge, workers who refused both the vaccine and the surcharge could still remain employed at Lincare.
Wagner did not seek an exemption from the vaccine requirement, but did send her employer a message stating, “Receiving the vaccine would be injurious to my health and wellbeing.”
A judge would later find that Wagner was operating “under the erroneous belief that she had contracted and recovered from COVID-19 in 2019,” which predated the arrival of the COVID-19 in Iowa by several months. Wagner had also...
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