Governor's health commission members laughed while scheming how to force county health departments to give up power to state

Hearing on Indiana Senate Bill 4, to take power away from county health departments, to be held Wednesday morning at the Indiana Statehouse

The big proposal from the Governor’s Public Health Commission to consolidate power over public health at the state level comes before the Indiana Senate tomorrow as Senate Bill 4.

The hearing on the bill begins at 9 a.m. in Room 431 of the Indiana Statehouse.

The bill lays out numerous new requirements that county health departments will have to meet — so numerous that they will have no choice but to give up their autonomy and enter into a cooperative arrangement with the state, in which they take orders from the state and are no longer accountable to citizens in the county they serve.

How do we know this?

Because at a June 30, 2022 meeting of the Governor’s Public Health Commission it was described by one commission member, and they all had a good laugh about it.

That commission member, Mark Bardsley, a county commissioner in Grant County, said this:

“In our quick little discussion over here, we’re going: ‘There will be some [counties] who say, autonomously, we want to be in control and we will opt out of this.’ What they’re saying is, ‘We will, over the next four years, fund our health according to state law, without your help.’ In about two years they’re gonna find out: ‘We can’t do that.’”

The table of commissioners erupted in laughter.

“How does this exchange sit with you?” Ashley Grogg of Hoosiers for Medical Liberty asked in a video she recorded at the time. “The commission is knowingly setting up counties to fail citizens, break state laws and is laughing about it.”

See the video below on the page of Hoosiers for Medical Liberty:

https://hoosiersformedicalliberty.com/publichealthvideos.html

Watch the full video of that June 30 meeting here:

Here is the full report of the Governor’s Public Health Commission:

https://www.in.gov/health/files/GPHC-Report-FINAL-2022-08-01.pdf

And here is a video released on Aug. 4, 2022, summarizing the report:

The Governor’s Public Health Commission was created by Gov. Eric Holcomb, and was chaired by former state Sen. Luke Kenley and by Dr. Judy Monroe, the president and CEO of the CDC Foundation, the private arm of the CDC that is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook, the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, and many other corporate interests.

The commission met from the summer of 2021 through the summer of 2022.

Its members were:

Commission Members

Judith A. Monroe, MD, FAAFP, former State Health Commissioner
Co-Chair

Hon. Luke Kenley, JD, former State Senator
Co-Chair

Kristina M. Box, MD, FACOG, current State Health Commissioner
Secretary

Hon. Susan Brooks, JD
Non-voting Citizen Advisor

Virginia Caine, MD
Director and Chief Medical Officer, Marion County Public Health Department

David J. Welsh, MD, MBA
Ripley County Local Health Officer

Mindy Waldron, REHS
Allen County Public Health Administrator

Paul K. Halverson, DrPH, FACHE
Founding Dean, Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health

Hannah L. Maxey, PhD, MPH, RDH
Associate Professor and Director of IU Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research & Policy

Brian C. Tabor
President of Indiana Hospital Association

Carl Ellison
President and Chief Executive Officer of Indiana Minority Health Coalition

Cara Veale, DHS, OTR, FACHE
Chief Executive Officer at Indiana Rural Health Association

Kim Irwin, MPH
Administrator of Indiana Public Health Association

Hon. Mark Bardsley
Grant County Commissioner

Hon. Bob Courtney, CPA
City of Madison Mayor

Hon. Dennis Dawes, MHA
Hendricks County Commissioner