(INDIANAPOLIS) – Indiana’s state health emergency has been extended again, while legislators try to untangle a couple of pandemic-related issues.
Governor Holcomb said in November he’d end the emergency once legislators took action to preserve expanded Medicaid and food stamp benefits, extend emergency licensing requirements, and allow the state health department to authorize COVID vaccinations for kids under 12. Those provisions are currently in effect through Holcomb’s emergency orders.
Those measures are mostly noncontroversial, and the bill to put them in state law sailed through the Senate 34-11. But the House has packaged those requests with a ban on employers requiring their workers to get vaccinated.
Five bills to limit workplace vaccine requirements died without a hearing in the Senate. President Pro Tem Rod Bray (R-Martinsville) notes the Senate has a head start on the vaccine issue from joint hearings held with the House in December. He says senators will review the House-passed bill, but says he doesn’t know how it will end up.
Minority Leader Greg Taylor (D-Indianapolis) predicts Senate Republicans will kill the vaccine restrictions. Business and health leaders have fiercely opposed the plan, and Taylor says he agrees with business groups’ argument that they’ve got to be able to run their own workplace.
The Senate has until February 24 to bring its version of the House bill to the Senate floor. After that, the House and Senate will have about two weeks to resolve any differences in their bills.
The latest emergency order runs through March 4. The more hotly debated elements of past versions of the order, including a mask mandate and business capacity limits, were allowed to expire months ago.
34 House Republicans have signed a resolution to terminate the emergency declaration whether Holcomb’s requests are met or not. That proposal, and a similar one introduced in last year’s session, haven’t received a hearing.
