OUTCOME ASSESSMENT

Legislative Successes

1. Limited passport protections from government entities - including state funded education institutions
2. Limited exemptions from immunization
3. Limited protections for unemployment due to refusing the vaccine

Key Legislative Failures

• Fails to challenge the federal government on States Rights

1. Continues State coercion with Federal money and reinforcing it as a future lever.
2. Abdicates authority to the federal government over many citizens to the world’s largest employer, contractor and consumer on planet Earth.

• Makes no attempts to resolve medical industry conflicts of interest

1. Offers no checks/balances to challenge the federally mandated interpretation of “the science”.
2. Suggest no medical industry independent arbiters of truth, free of conflicts of interest.
3. Codifies the CDC as the single arbiter of medical truth into Indiana State Law.

• Further extends liability protections, while not protecting citizens

1. Leaves citizens with no recourse if medical treatments fail to work, or have severe adverse effects.
2. Allows mandates and intense public and private pressure to continue for treatments which are free of liability for their manufacturers.
3. Extends liability protections for State bureaucrats; the state health authorities who give standing orders for medical treatments and make official recommendations to the public.

• Fails to protect the right to reasonably prescribe & fulfill

1. Does not address the rights of licensed practitioners to prescribe or administer medications consistent with other medical industry standard off-label use cases - without coercion.
2. Does not protect the right to have a legal prescription filled.

• Fails to Restrict Discrimination and Codifies Psuedoscience

1. Provides no protections from private businesses enforcing passports on citizens who seek their services or products.
2. Creates State sponsored discrimination via “the process is the punishment”.
3. Encourages the testing of only a portion of the population that spreads covid.
4. Places time bounds on the effectiveness of natural immunity, but not for immunization.

• Fails to modernize State Emergency Powers

1. Extends additional power to unelected State bureaucrats, while limiting none.
2. Does nothing to curtail or modernize the balance of power during emergencies, considering the enabling technologies.

OUTLINE

This section simply outlines the Bill so the reader may better understand what it contains at a summary level.

Link to the Bill
 

SECTION 1 - Retain Federal Matching Funds 

• Bill Page: 1
• Disposition: New 
• Stated Purpose: Permits waivers necessary to retain federal matching funds
• Who it Empowers: It further empowers “the secretary” - to issue waivers
• Who it Constrains: N/A
• Renewals: Every 6 months
• Expiry: When the applicable Federal funding sources listed are no longer available
• Applicable To: Applies only to Family First Coronavirus Response Act, American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and any other Covid-19 Federal related law, regulation, guidance or policy
• Comments: The Governor stated this as a requirement to end the State of Emergency and the Bill’s author expressed that it would be unwise for the State of Indiana to lose this money to another state.

SECTION 2 - SNAP

• Bill Page: 2
• Disposition: New
• Stated Purpose: Participating in SNAP emergency allotments 
• Who it Empowers: Empowers “the secretary” to declare an emergency
• Who it Constrains: N/A
• Timing: N/A
• Expiry: April 16
• Applicable To: The federal Families First Coronavirus Act 
• Comments: Same as Section 1 

SECTION 3 - Definition of Government Entity

• Bill Page: 3
• Disposition: New 
• Comments: No further valuable information in this section

SECTION 4 - Dispense Immunizations to age 5, No Civil Liability

• Bill Page: 2-3
• Disposition: Amended 
• Stated Purpose: Allows the issue of standing orders to permit a pharmacist or licenced practitioner to administer or dispense immunizations
• Who it Empowers:
  
  • The state health commissioner or designated public health authority - to issue a standing orders
  • The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - as the single authority to recommend immunization
  • The state health commissioner or designated public health authority - is immune from civil liability
• Who it Constrains: N/A
• Renewals: Continues with extensions of the federal emergency for Covid 
• Expiry: Everything is permanent except for the subsection that permits immunization for ages 5-10, which expires when the federal covid emergency expires. 
• Applicable To: Access to immunizations for all Indiana residents over the age of 4
• Observations: Under subsection 2, smoking cessation products get oversight from your doctor, where the immunization does not.  Why is this even in the Bill?

SECTION 5 - Definition of Passport

• Bill Page: 3
• Disposition: Amended
• Stated Purpose: Defines the term “immunization passport” - as written, electronic or printed information regarding an individual’s immunization status for Covid-19 
• Comments: No other information of value in this section. 

SECTION 6 - Definition of Government Entity

• Bill Page: 3
• Disposition: New 
• Stated Purpose: Clarify the inclusion of educational institution, and the exclusion of healthcare institutions
• Comments: 
  
  • This was likely done to ensure that hospitals did not have a conflict with federal medical reimbursement policies, such as medicare.
  • This was also likely done to address questions around University mandates.

SECTION 7 - Policy for Passports

• Bill Page: 3-4
• Disposition: Amended
• Stated Purpose: Issue or require immunization passport for Covid-19
• Who it Empowers: N/A
• Who it Constrains: Indiana Government Entities
• Renewal: N/A 
• Expiry: Only applies to the definition of passport in a previous section - and that applies only to Covid-19
• Applicable To: Indiana Government Entities
• Comments:
  
  • This section is confusing as it goes on to say that a government entity can still store individual immunization status, provide HIPAA compliant status info, or maintain a record for the purpose of public health administration.

SECTION 8 - Unemployment Benefits

• Bill Page: 4-8
• Disposition: Amended
• Stated Purpose: Subsection 9: Shall not be subject to disqualification of benefits if for refusing the Covid-19 immunization and has requested an exemption - and complied with Section 9 
• Who it Empowers:  Employee 
• Who it Constrains: Employer, Government Benefits
• Expiry: Expires at the end of Covid mandates 
• Applicable To: Employment in private companies
• Comments: None 

SECTION 9 - Exemptions and Testing

• Bill Page: 8-11
• Disposition: New
• Stated Purpose: 
  
  • Exemptions from immunization mandates
  • Exemptions include: Medical, Religious, Natural Infection 
  • Testing requirements
  • 90 day limit on Natural Immunity
• Who it Empowers or Constrains
  
  • Empowers employees of private companies - to be granted exemptions, but constrains them to limited conditions
  • Empowers private companies to mandate immunization, and to punish those with exemptions with the testing process and costs, but requires them to grant limited exemptions 
• Expiry: Expires at the end of Covid mandates
• Applicable
  
  • To: Private companies with the exceptions below
  • Not To: but not health care, not those under contract, subcontract, or grant with federal government, not those working in another state, not professional sports, or entertainment or those who work closely to them 
• Comments:
  
  • The final version removed wording for religions exemptions “without question” (the sincerity of the belief)
  • This does not protect a practitioner’s right without coercion to recommend medical exemptions
  • Section 4 - Does not recognize that immunity from the immunization is waning
  • Nothing here acknowledges the durability of Natural Immunity to that of immunization.  It places time constraints on Natural Immunity and none on immunization. 

APPENDIX

About the Assessment

• LENS -
  • Long standing and time proven principles of Individual Liberty captured in the key founding documents of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  Most importantly, the views are based on the World View of the two Greatest Commandments.
• INSIGHTS - this section is based on feedback & criticisms received
  • Why are Covid-related public health policies a high priority, and why are some compromises hard to accept?
    • Covid-related public health policies have led to very bad outcomes - and a substantial portion of the population has suffered greatly, and continues to.
    • These policies set precedent for future legal judgements and more policies which weaken or nullify critical personal freedoms.
    • We are set up for more emergencies to suspend or curtail our Constitutional Rights. This is the very foundation of our most intimate freedoms.  Few things are more important!
  • Are the criticisms of the Legislature and the Bill fair, considering that the reviewer is an outsider and not privy to what goes on inside the Republican Caucus?
    • In private business, outcomes are the ultimate measurement of success.  While how we get there is important also, nothing is more important than the outcome itself.  If you don’t satisfy your end customer, then no other excuse matters.  As Constituents we are rightfully focused on the outcomes.