Employees at one area public nursing home who agree to get injected with the vaccine to ward off COVID-19 will be $750 richer. Northampton County Council authorized the payment to all of Gracedale’s 650 employees at a cost of nearly a half-million dollars if all of them agree to take the vaccine.

Gracedale is the only county-run facility in the five-county Times News area that is taking this extraordinary action.

The money for this boondoggle is coming from the federal coronavirus relief fund, according to County Executive Lamont McClure. In other words, we taxpayers are footing the bill for this generous handout.

Several of my contacts at other county-run facilities are livid that Gracedale employees are getting this sizable bonus to do something they should be doing gratis for the public good and especially for the safety of their patients and fellow employees.

“Of course, if they offered me $750 to get the vaccine, I would not turn it down,” said one nurse at Cedarbrook, the Lehigh County facility, who asked that her name not be used for fear of being targeted for reprisal.

McClure told county council that there were reports of many employees who were wary of getting the vaccine, so he saw this as a painless way to get large-scale compliance.

Nursing home operators cannot compel their employees to be vaccinated even if it is in the long-term interest of their patients, fellow employees and themselves, McClure said.

Some legal specialists insist that the legality of forcing an employee to take the vaccine has not yet been settled. They do agree for the most part, however, that employees can opt out on religious grounds or if they have any medical condition where the shots might compromise their health.

Legal experts, however, believe that an employer might have the right to require the vaccination if it can be shown that failing to get it would create major hardship for the employer or pose a direct threat to anyone working near the employee.

Using this rule of thumb would signal to me that nursing home employees might very well be in this category.

After all, mandating these shots for employees would not be unique. Health care sector employers frequently require flu vaccines, and those working in the wastewater treatment industry are required to take hepatitis shots.

Despite this, I am not a fan of forced compliance. A more ideal path is for government, the medical community and business to collaborate to encourage those eligible that it is in the best interest for themselves and others to take a vaccine that has been proven to be close to 95% effective with few side effects. This puts the focus on what we stand to lose by refusing to take the vaccine.

Gracedale, one of the largest county-run nursing homes in the state, has struggled with the number of surging cases and deaths, especially early last spring and summer. About 80 deaths have occurred among Gracedale patients since the pandemic began early in 2020. At one point last spring, the facility needed help from the Pennsylvania National Guard to cover shifts.

According to McClure, nursing home patients and employees are getting priority in the pecking order being established as to who gets the vaccine when.

By the way, the idea of paying people to get vaccinated isn’t an idea unique to Gracedale. Economist Robert Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, favors it, calling it an “adult version of a doctor handing out candy to children.”

Litan recommends that the government should pay $1,000 to each person who receives the vaccine. Litan does not cite any studies to support his view, but he said that he has a “hunch” that it would work well.

Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard University, and John Delaney of Maryland, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, want to go Litan one better: They recommend that everyone be paid $1,500.

Do I hear $2,000?

This foolish payment scheme could easily backfire. Those who don’t trust vaccinations could easily conclude that their employer is trying to “buy them off,” proving their reluctance to taking the vaccine was valid all along. This could give rise to additional misinformation and conspiracy theories, and we certainly don’t need any more of that.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com