The 2022 session of the Indiana General Assembly has been fast-paced and hectic. During the first half of the session, there were so many business-related bills (several good, many bad) moving through the legislative process, receiving committee hearings/votes and being passed by the full House and Senate that your Chamber lobbying team worked overtime to keep up. In total, the House passed 104 House bills and the Senate passed 163 Senate bills before the first half deadline at the end of January. I spoke to two large audiences earlier this week and I asked both of them if anyone thought there were 267 new, good ideas that needed to be enacted into law by the General Assembly this year? As you might expect, not a single hand was raised.

As the second half of the session began earlier this month, we were facing a number of Chamber-opposed bills that were still alive and needed to be stopped. I am pleased to report that as we end this second phase of the legislative session, every Chamber-opposed bill that cleared its house of origin has been defeated or, in a couple of instances, has been substantially amended into a bill we no longer oppose. Among the bills the Chamber has successfully stopped in this second half of the legislative session include:

  • HB 1001 (COVID Vaccinations): With ongoing Chamber advocacy, this bill was amended to remove all of the anti-employer provisions contained in the House-passed version. Employers that require employee vaccinations will no longer be required to pay for testing for employees who refuse to get vaccinated. Religious and medical exemption standards will be tied to federal Title IV standards instead of a separate, more expansive state standard. And, unlike the House-passed version, employees who refuse vaccination or testing will not be allowed to claim unemployment benefits.
  • HB 1063 and HB 1100 (Administrative Rules Procedures): This measure would have required all cases appealed from a state agency to be reviewed de novo (i.e. from scratch). This would have led to much longer trials and far greater legal expenses for businesses to get their trials/issues with state government resolved. The Chamber advocated against the bill and it was not heard in committee. House Bill 1100, another administrative rules bill, said if any state agency wanted to promulgate a new administrative rule, it must first repeal a different rule. While this sounds reasonable on the surface, it was completely arbitrary and impractical in practice. For example, there are certain instances where an agency is required by state or federal law to adopt rules to implement the law. Requiring some other agency rule to be repealed just to implement the rule required by statute would not make sense. The Chamber opposed this bill and it died in committee. (See the write-up in the Energy/Environmental section for further details.)
  • HB 1373 (Ambulance Service Reimbursements): This House-passed bill would have enacted assignment of benefits for ambulance services requiring insurers to provide direct reimbursement to providers with whom they had no contractual relationship. This, in turn, would disrupt health care networks and drive up prices to employers for these services as providers would no longer join networks and agree to network prices if they can get reimbursed directly without joining the network. The Chamber opposed the bill and it was not given a hearing in the Senate.
  • SB 95 and SB 268 (Health Care Mandates): These two bills would have imposed health care mandates on small group insurance plans that serve our smallest employers. The Chamber has a longstanding position in opposition to health care mandated coverages. These mandates serve to drive up costs for small employers (larger, self-insured employers are exempt from these mandates per federal ERISA), which now represent less than 15% of the health care market. These two bills were not heard in the House and are now dead.
  • SB 249 (Health Care Policy Pricing): This bill would have had the Department of Insurance setting health care policy prices in many instances. The Chamber has long opposed government price setting in any context. This bill was not heard in the House.
  • SB 288 (Eminent Domain Proceedings): This bill pertained to eminent domain proceedings involving pipelines and public utilities. The bill would have increased litigation actions and costs in these cases which, in turn, would lead to higher utility rates.

The Chamber is pleased to report that, through persistent advocacy, these anti-business bills are now no more. The Chamber will remain vigilant throughout the remainder of the legislative session to make sure they do not pop back up in conference committee as an amendment to another bill.

Resource: Kevin Brinegar at (317) 264-6882 or email: kbrinegar@indianachamber.com