The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked enforcement on a vaccine mandate requirement for large employers, handing a win to Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans who had sharply criticized the move by the Joe Biden administration.

But the court at the same time is keeping in place a rule requiring vaccination of health care workers employed at hospitals and providers that rely on federal funding.

That creates an immediate conflict in Florida where the GOP-controlled Legislature in November passed a law pushed by DeSantis to ban vaccine mandates in the state unless employers offered up a broad range of exemptions. 

DeSantis has loudly decried the vaccine mandates and said the federal government widely exceeded its power when putting them in place. He said repeatedly that no one deserves to lose their job if they refused to get a "jab."

Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for DeSantis, exulted in the Supreme Court ruling, saying on Twitter that it was a "huge win for workers' rights; huge blow to the tyranny of the administrative state. The regime was wrong. (DeSantis) was right."

The decision by the court to block the mandate crafted by federal workplace regulators was widely expected, especially after the round of skeptical questions from justices. Biden's administration sought to require employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers get vaccinated or tested.

The court ruled 6-to-3 to block the private employer mandate, while the court was split 5-to-4 over whether to allow the health care worker mandate to remain in place.

That slim majority concluded federal health officials had the power to place the mandate on nurses, doctors and others employed at health care providers that rely on Medicare and Medicaid funds from the federal government.

"Of course the vaccine mandate goes further than what the secretary has done in the past to implement infection control," wrote the court. "But he has never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before. In any event, there can be no doubt that addressing infection problems in Medicare and Medicaid facilities is what he does. And his response is not a surprising one. Vaccination requirements are a common feature of the provision of healthcare in America."

The Thursday rulings don't end the legal battles over either mandate, but instead centered on whether or not either rule could be enforced during ongoing court challenges.

Florida hospitals and nursing homes that buck the federal CMS rule risk losing billions of dollars in federal health care money. They could be prosecuted by the state Attorney General's office if they violate the Florida law.

"We're going to make sure that that is enforced, and we're going to make sure we're providing protections for people so that they don't have their livelihoods ruined by an unconstitutional and really ham-handed federal mandate," DeSantis said.

Florida Health Care Association Spokesperson Kristen Knapp said skilled nursing facilities are experiencing a "historic labor crisis" and the SCOTUS ruling could exacerbate the situation. The group represents the majority of the state's 690 nursing homes.

"We are extremely concerned that the court's decision to allow the CMS mandate to go forward will cause nursing homes to lose even more staff at a time when we are grappling with significant staffing shortages that are impacting access to care," she said.

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Renzo Downey contributed to this report