BEDFORD – The Bedford Chamber of Commerce hosted their Breakfast with the Legislators event on Friday, which provided chamber members with the unique opportunity to speak directly with Indiana District 44 Senator Eric Koch and Indiana District 65 Representative Chris May and ask them questions about issues facing the local community and how the State government could look to address them.
One of the audience questions, from Bedford mayor Sam Craig, regarded emergency response medical coverage in the city.
Craig explained that Bedford often struggles with ambulance availability, with some who call needing to wait 30-40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive to help them. As both May and Koch had established intentions earlier in the event to increase public health funding, Craig asked if any of those additional funds could be put toward EMS coverage.
Koch was the first to respond, thanking Craig for his suggestion.
May followed, asking how the governments of Lawrence County and Bedford are collaborating to address the issue. He said that, while he isn’t opposed to potentially allocating funds to the issue, he would like to see the two governmental bodies work together first to potentially help more local residents.
He mentioned the recently formed Lawrence County Fire Territory, saying he thinks a potential solution could be a county-wide fire district, with the full support of Lawrence County, as well as the cities of Bedford and Mitchell.
Former Lawrence County Council president Scott Smith asked about the incoming increases to property taxes that will come along with increased assessed property values. He asked if there could potentially be relief for those increases.
Koch said the matter was currently being discussed in the Senate, with members potentially taking a holistic approach and addressing the entire tax system, opposed to looking into this one direct issue. He finished his answer by saying he expects more serious attempts to address such issues in the future.
May followed, saying that assessments showed an 16-25% value increase on average, which would be a big hit to property owners. He noted that government entities have already established budgets for the upcoming year with those increases in mind, meaning any potential reductions in fees could have an adverse impact on them.
He said he’s heard some ideas floated around, including increases to the homestead exemption for a period of time. Though there are no definite solutions being proposed at this time, he said he expects officials to react with policy changes.
Former Bedford mayor Shawna Girgis asked about initiatives to lower healthcare costs for Hoosiers. Girgis’ question focused on how those cost changes would impact hospitals and how they planned to balance the two things.
Koch said this issue is one that they’ve heard from concerned employers about and has faced many for a long time. As such, he said there is not one simple solution.He said that many Hoosiers are struggling with high uninsured care costs and he expects there to be meaningful change to address that issue. He also said he would like to look at the role governments have played in this issue; what they’ve done to potentially incentivize such high costs and what could be done to address the issue from that perspective.
May was next to answer, saying the worst thing legislators or hospital administrators could do in this situation is be tone deaf to the struggles with costs many are dealing with. He said though action has been taken previously to lower costs for patients, he feels many of his constituents have yet to see savings. He attributed this to hospitals often being able to find workarounds to legally avoid such cost saving measures.
With Dunn hospital closing, IU Hospital has been left as the sole option locally, which is something he said they will need more time to assess the impact of before making any large changes. He also said that as long as they’re the only option in Lawrence County, he will work hard to advocate on their behalf.
A full audio transcript of the event can be listened to below:
