![]() “By the time they start thinking even about public health, there’s not a whole lot of money left.” Ed Charbonneau, who chairs the state Senate Health and Provider Services Committee and carried the bill. “When the county is putting their budget together, they’re worried about roads, they’re worried about jails, they’re worried about the salaries of their employees and what have you,” said Republican state Sen. Now, counties that opt in to the new funding and put up a 20 percent match will share $75 million this fiscal year, which began July 1, and $150 million next year. Although state dollars do flow to counties through various emergency preparedness, immunization and child health programs, the state contributed just $7 million a year directly to local health departments. Until now, public health funding in Indiana was largely left to the counties. “Knowing that he was going to be asking for that money said a lot about why it was so important.” “He was always the ‘no’ guy,” said Ambre Marr, state legislative director for AARP Indiana. Holcomb said the pandemic exposed the need to address the state’s historically poor public health metrics. Medical technologists work at a computer in the PCR testing lab at Quest Diagnostics on Feb. Lawmakers, lobbyists and public health advocates in Indiana chalk the bill’s success up to a favorable budgetary climate that left lawmakers unusually generous, smart leadership by Holcomb and careful messaging from his appointed and well-respected foot soldiers - including a former state senator, Luke Kenley, who earned a reputation as a penny-pinching budget chair during his time in the legislature. “They were able to make that message resonate with enough - not with everybody, but with enough - of the political leadership of the state in an economically viable time to get some increased funding.” Public health is about the health of your local community,’” Sparer said. It’s more than masks and vaccines and school closings. “What Holcomb and others were able to do in Indiana - which is so unusual and so important - is basically say, ‘You know what? Public health is more than the pandemic. Indiana offers lessons for public health advocates in states where politics has turned hostile, said Michael Sparer, professor and chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “It worries me if someone believes there should be no government role in public health or public safety or public education or public infrastructure.” “If we were going to make a mistake, it was not going to be because we were sitting around admiring the problem,” Holcomb said in an interview. Indiana has some of the lowest levels of per capita public health funding in the nation, and ranks poorly in several key measures, such as smoking and tobacco use, obesity and mental health. Holcomb knows the proposal put him on a political limb, but said the pandemic exposed the need to address the state’s historically poor public health metrics. Holcomb, who is term-limited and will leave office in early 2025, spent more time talking specifically about public health in his State of the State address this year than any other governor - Republican or Democrat - according to a POLITICO review of each governor’s speech. And Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled legislature last month blocked a meningitis vaccine requirement for seventh graders.īut Indiana may offer a conservative model for improving fragile and beleaguered public health systems and countering the growing opposition to them that’s dominating the discourse. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) earlier this year called for abolishing the CDC. Ron DeSantis has touted his “medical freedom” bona fides as he campaigns for the nation’s top office. Hahahahhahha.Pandemic backlash and anti-vaccine sentiment have coalesced into a growing movement hostile to government involvement in public health, and its enmity stretches beyond Covid vaccines and masks. Would down me the honour of a dance? I would be most delighted. Congrulations on your corrination, too -PRINCE Nicholas. (No way! You spinning your tunes? It was totally time! I love it! Hey, Blair? Don't look now but. This song was played during the Graduation in the movie Barbie: Princess Charm School.Īnd everybody and everybody and everybody and everybody Fabulous/We Rule this School- I couldn't find who sings this song, sorry.
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