INDIANAPOLIS – As President Joe Biden’s vaccination mandates make their way through a series of court challenges, legislators representing Hancock County are among those supporting Indiana legislation with the opposite aim.
Executive orders from Biden would mandate that most businesses require their workers to get vaccinated or undergo regular testing for COVID-19. By contrast, House Bill 1001, the first piece of legislation introduced in the current session of the Indiana House of Representatives, would sharply limit vaccine mandates.
Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield, is among those who co-sponsored the bill. He said he and the other legislators in favor of it are seeking to “undo the mandate with a mandate.”
“We want to end the state of emergency and give people the right to choose,” he said.
In a nearly seven-hour hearing last week, the legislators heard from people both opposed to and in favor of vaccination mandates. While the House had initially considered voting on the proposal the following day, leaders decided to wait until the Indiana General Assembly reconvenes in January.
House Bill 1001 would allow employees to claim exemption from vaccine mandates with a simple statement of sincerely held religious belief, or to claim a medical exemption for almost any reason. Employers would be penalized for firing unvaccinated workers. And it would add public universities and school corporations to the list of government entities that can’t require people who seek their services to get vaccinated.
The bill also includes language on COVID-19 benefits requested by the governor. Gov. Eric Holcomb has said he will allow the state’s declared public health emergency to lapse if legislators approve language that would allow the state to keep receiving federal money for COVID relief even without a state of emergency.
At the hearing, some business leaders spoke out against the legislation, saying they should be free to decide for themselves what vaccination policy is best for their employees. They also objected to the potential cost to businesses of paying for testing for unvaccinated employees.
The CEO of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Kevin Brinegar, spoke at the hearing and said employers footing the bill for testing was one of his organization’s problems with the bill.
“It also leaves many important questions unanswered, including around testing availability. To greatly discourage and inhibit employers from getting their employees vaccinated to promote health and safety within their workplaces – at a time when there are surging infections, hospitalizations and deaths as the omicron variant has emerged – is simply the wrong policy in our view,” he said.
Cherry said legislators are working on a major amendment that should address some of those concerns and would, among other things, shift the burden of testing costs away from employers. He said the bill will have to go through the normal legislative process and won’t be rushed.
“We’re just trying to thread the needle, and it’s pretty tough right now,” he said.
Cherry added that the response to the legislation at the committee hearing was mostly positive.
Rep. Chris Jeter, R-Fishers, who represents northwestern Hancock County in the House, could not be reached for comment.
Sen. Mike Crider, R-Greenfield, has been generally against vaccination mandates, but he said that after attending the lengthy hearing on HB 1001, he wasn’t sure of the best path forward to achieve the goal of keeping people safe with minimal government involvement.
“Everybody’s got a different version of what the end result should be,” he said.
Crider said he supports the measures Holcomb requested to end the state of emergency and said that if those had been carved out in a separate bill, it likely would have passed already. He added that because of the many different pressures legislators are facing from businesses, health-care providers, and others, it could be difficult to quickly reach a consensus.
“There’s currently quite a bit of disagreement among legislators,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 vaccinations became available, health experts in Hancock County and around the country have urged people to receive them and said they are the best method of protecting against coronavirus infection and death.
Hancock Regional Hospital CEO Steve Long said COVID-19 vaccines are both safe and effective.
“This is a statement based not only on massive amounts of published research, but on our own experience treating thousands of COVID-positive patients over the last two years at Hancock Health,” he said in an email. “The health-care system has been nearly overmatched several times during the course of this pandemic, and we are in the midst of yet another surge of COVID patients making up 50% of our inpatient census this morning. I shudder to think what the situation would be if not for a significant proportion of the population having been vaccinated.”
Long said Hancock Health created an immunity policy for their employees to help create a safe environment for patients and workers. He said nearly 97% of employees have fulfilled the requirements of the policy by documenting acquired immunity via vaccination, natural immunity through infection (considered by scientists to be less reliable and less long-lasting than vaccination), or a medical or religious exemption.
“I encourage our legislators to thoughtfully and prayerfully balance the rights and responsibilities we have as individuals, families, organizations and fellow residents of the state of Indiana,” Long said.
