Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. June 4, 2024.
Editorial: Why isn’t there a legislative interim environmental study committee?
It’s been a little more than a month since state Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, expressed deep frustration that the Indiana Legislative Council excluded environmental topics from the 2024 interim study committee assignments.
“I am extremely disappointed that, yet again, there will be no environmental study committee this year. Indiana faces some of the country’s worst air and water quality,” she wrote in a May 14 news release.
Yoder highlighted Indiana’s severe air and water quality issues and criticized the recent House Enrolled Act 1383 for potentially worsening water quality. Yoder emphasized the necessity of a statewide water resource management plan to address droughts and water issues.
Yoder argued that environmental health underpins critical areas such as health care, jobs, housing and infrastructure, and stressed that sustainable economic growth requires protecting natural resources.
The supermajority’s response: Cue the cricket noise. We did ask the Senate majority leader, Sen. Rodric Bray, for comment Monday, but we did not receive a response.
Over the following weeks and months, Indiana lawmakers will delve into various topics — such as crime trends, Medicaid reimbursement rates and potential tax reforms — as they gear up for a robust 2025 budget session.
Throughout the summer and fall, representatives and senators will tackle issues assigned by the General Assembly’s Legislative Council, a body comprising the House speaker, Senate president, seven representatives and seven senators.
However, if history is a guide, many reports submitted to the council may solely outline the tasks assigned, the number of meetings conducted and the individuals involved without including specific legislative recommendations.
In a 2022 column highlighting the interim study group process, former Journal Gazette Indianapolis bureau chief Niki Kelly, now editor of Indiana Capital Chronicle, proffered two reasons for having a study committee.
“The first is when a topic truly is complicated and could use additional time and expertise to delve into solutions that the expedited session process doesn’t allow,” she wrote.
“The second,” she added, “is when a controversial proposal is dividing legislators, leadership assigns the topic to a study committee to get it off the table and out of view — to kill it.”
So, what does it mean when the legislature doesn’t even assign a topic to a committee?
It would be illogical to view the supermajority’s stance on environmental regulation as tepid due to the drastic cuts to rules and regulations in the past few sessions and an abandoned attempt to cull the list of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” that have been found in Indiana drinking water.
The lack of an environmental study committee cannot be because Hoosiers don’t care about the environment. A 2020 study by Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute, funded by the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, surveyed 800 Hoosiers to assess their environmental concerns. (The stated confidence level was 95%.) The results showed 80% of respondents prioritize environmental protection, even if it slows economic growth.
Our hypothesis as to why there’s no study committee is that asking questions of experts — and integrating industry shills — would highlight continued environmental degradation that would be hard to ignore.
The supermajority’s refusal to invest in the environment is going to have harsh consequences for our state, Muncie Rep. Sue Errington, the ranking Democrat on the House Environmental Affairs Committee, told The Journal Gazette Monday.
“Currently, Indiana is at the bottom of the barrel regarding environmental affairs,” she said. “A 2024 WalletHub survey ranked Indiana as the 33rd least green state in the nation, and another report from Forbes placed us at 49th in air pollution. With these dismal numbers, Indiana is in no condition to be so casually dismissive of the environment.”
At the very least, a study committee would allow these discussions to be brought to the table. It could be that the reason an environmental study committee has not been assembled is not due to the topic’s triviality but rather because the magnitude of the decisions that have been made and are to be made by the supermajority is more easily resolved with as little debate as possible.
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Jeffersonville News and Tribune. June 7, 2024.
Editorial: Long-term care for seniors must be a top priority
Indiana is overhauling delivery of its senior Medicaid services this summer in a move that, hopefully, will make care more efficient and effective.
It’s a step in addressing a major issue facing Indiana — long-term care for elderly Hoosiers.
A recent collaboration between CNHI News and the Associated Press brought home how dire the situation is across the nation. According to the reporting, the number of Americans over the age of 65 is rising, and more than half will require long-term health care. But just a small percentage have begun planning for it, much less figuring out how they’ll pay for it.
This puts pressure not just on our aging citizens but also on their families. As covered in the special report, children and grandchildren are increasingly becoming the caregivers for their parents and grandparents. While it’s commendable that family members step up when needed, expecting working-age Hoosiers to be the primary caregivers for seniors isn’t a viable solution to the problem.
Our state lawmakers will continue to explore Medicaid during interim committee meetings over the summer and fall. This will allow for important discussion and consideration of the new Medicaid system, and also exploration of other ways state officials can assist aging Hoosiers and their families.
It’s certainly not breaking news that assisted living and nursing home facilities are becoming harder to staff and maintain. Providing incentives for employees to work at such facilities is a potential way the state could help offset this problem.
The opening of more adult daycare facilities would also help. Lawmakers must ensure that the adult day programs in place don’t fall victim to changes in Medicaid management. More efforts should also be made to provide in-home care for seniors.
Medicaid can’t be the only options for seniors. Financial restrictions and other issues lead to gaps for those in need. We’re in danger of having a society where only the affluent or impoverished have access to long-term care, and that’s a disaster in the making.
Personal responsibility also factors into this crisis. We must have tough conversations with our parents and grandparents about their long-term care. It’s never easy to talk about dementia or the last years of life, but delaying those conversations doesn’t solve the problem. Not having a plan in place only furthers the chaos and pain when the time for long-term care for our loved ones arrives.
There’s enough heartache in seeing those we care about struggle with health and mental issues as they age. Not having a care system in place that enables them to age gracefully and with the respect they deserve makes the situation much worse.
It’s going to take a massive public and private effort to solve this problem. Let’s keep long-term care at the top of the legislative agenda and at the top of our minds. Our parents and grandparents deserve it.
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