When COVID first hit Indiana, you may recall that testing was an important ingredient to have in order to run a business or just have people gather at all. Well before there were vaccines or effective treatments for COVID, testing was key.
Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness acted to fill the testing gap by creating his own city health department, something rarely done in Indiana. He took a great deal of heat from other elected officials in Hamilton County for that decision, but Fishers immediately setup a COVID testing program well before those tests were available to citizens in other parts of Indiana and Hamilton County.
I bring this up because Indiana state lawmakers have an important decision to make in the 2023 session of the General Assembly. It centers on how much money the state should spend on public health.
Reporter Peter Blanchard of the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) wrote an extensive piece in the November 25th edition about public health in the Hoosier state and one man at the center of that discussion – former State Senator Luke Kenley. He was appointed a co-chair of the Governor’s Public Health Commission by Governor Eric Holcomb.
Kenley represented Noblesville and a part of Fishers for many years in the Indiana Senate and wielded great power and influence as Chair of the Indiana Senate Finance Committee. Just about anything dealing with state money had to go through that committee.
Reporter Blanchard provides a good background of Kenley’s influence during his time in the General Assembly. But after 5 years of leaving his elected post, Kenley is now in a position to play a key role in Indiana’s public health future.
To be blunt, Indiana’s standing of taking care of Hoosiers’ health is not a good one. Blanchard cites data to prove the point.
“Indiana’s poor public health outcomes have been well-documented for years,” Blanchard writes. “The overall health of Hoosiers has been steadily declining since the early ’90s, when Indiana ranked 26th in the nation for overall health outcomes. Today, the state ranks 40th overall in public health outcomes, with higher-than-average rates of obesity, smoking, infant mortality and maternal mortality.”
Blanchard then refers to a 2021 report ranking Indiana 48th among the states for spending on public health. That amounts to public health spending of $55 per Indiana resident, with $374 million dollars total spent every year by Indiana. The per-person spending on the average among American states is $91, with our state spending $36 per person less than the national average.
Kenley is quoted in the IBJ story as saying he was “somewhat shocked” at these numbers and wasn’t aware how far behind Indiana is on public health spending while serving in the Indiana Legislature. Democrats serving with Kenley during his time in office are quoted by Blanchard as saying they brought public health spending up numerous times during Kenley’s tenure chairing the Finance Committee, including citing several pieces of legislation proposed by Democrats that never saw the light of day.
Kenley and his fellow members of the Governor’s Public Health Commission will be making a proposal to state lawmakers as they fashion the coming 2-year budget for the state. Under this plan, state government would provide 80% of public health funding if individual counties opt-in to the program.
Legislative leaders are not fully behind the Commission’s ideas but have not opposed the proposal yet, and many details of the plan are not publicly known at this time. But Kenley, according to Blanchard’s reporting, has been quietly meeting with officials from around the state in an effort to round up support for the Commission’s ideas.
Blanchard ends his piece with how poor health among Hoosiers has a price tag. In other words, a lack of public health spending has costs everyone must pay as a result.
When Mayor Fadness created the Fishers Health Department, he did so because he maintained the health of his residents was at risk without access to COVID testing. He was able to do that, and the city’s Health Department is still around and still doing the work of public health.
A once-powerful state senator is now trying to sell a plan to provide better public health in Indiana through a system allowing local governments to opt into a new plan, if state lawmakers choose. The answer will come when the legislative session next year approves the state’s 2-year spending plan.
Peter Blanchard’s story in the IBJ is available at this link, but you may need to be a subscriber to access it. Again, I encourage everyone to subscribe to your local media.