HB 1001 was destroyed by Senator Mark Messmer’s amendment at the Senate hearing.
Now it has no state protections for religious exemptions. It only allows for religious exemptions based on current Federal law for the Civil Rights Act. We already have that available to us, we don’t need a state law to say it is available to us. It also removed the part that says an employer cannot take an adverse action against an employee with an exemption. That means we can be fired and poorly treated for having an exemption.
HB 1001 is now a bill protecting businesses while they discriminate against staff. It puts into law for twice a week testing paid for by you and puts masks into state law for those with exemptions.
WHY WOULD WE WANT FORCED TESTING AND MASKS PUT INTO STATE LAW, WHILE IT GIVES US NOTHING MORE THAN CURRENT FEDERAL PROTECTIONS? There is no longer any benefit to this bill.
It also makes standing orders for children’s vaccines which we do not support. That will allow children to be vaccinated at some random pop up clinic in a mall where they don’t have any medical history.
CALL THE SENATE AND TELL THEM TO MAKE AN AMENDMENT to add protections back to HB 1001 and fix it after Senator Messmer wrote an amendent THAT STRIPPED THE BILL of everything good.
317-232-9400
Make sure to tell the legislative aides that you are disgusted with the Republican party, and you will be voting for any primary challenger over the incumbents due to their refusal to protect Hoosier jobs with a state religious exemption.
Although it is possible that the bill could get an amendment on 2nd reading, it’s highly unlikely. Senator Messmer, the majority leader of the Senate, did the amendment. Other Senator’s aren’t going to go against his leadership as the author of the amendment. Rep Lehman said during the hearing that he supported the amendment. Don’t believe him if he tells you that he does not support the amendment. He clearly said he did during the hearing.
We cannot trust the leadership of the legislature. I have watched them lie more than once, and I don’t believe they are going to fix HB 1001.
If it passes the full Senate, it will go back to the House to be consolidated due to being a completely different bill than the House passed.
The House can let it die, agree with it, or work on making changes with members of the Senate.
Unless they make the bill go back to what it was when it passed the House, we have to kill this bill. Allowing it to pass is not a good option. It puts discrimination into law for anyone who gets an exemption, it allows employers to deny exemptions, and it makes staff pay for testing. It is worse than getting nothing, because it gives us many bad parts while giving us nothing more than we already have with the Federal Act. The risk of allowing this to pass into law is too great to wait and see if the House will fix it. I believe it is highly unlikely to happen, and that Holcomb and Senator Bray had a hand in ensuring the exemptions in the bill were destroyed.
One reason for making staff pay for testing was the fact testing can be free. I applied for reimbursement for home test kits. This is what the insurance company said: Insurance WILL NOT cover tests used for employment.
Complete and submit your claim
Test(s) included in this claim:
Flowflex COVID-19 Antigen Home Tests
Flowflex COVID-19 Antigen Home TestEdit Flowflex COVID-19 Antigen Home TestDelete
- 02/17/2022
Signature required: Any person who knowingly and with intent to defraud, injure, or deceive any insurance company, submits a claim or application containing any materially false, deceptive, incomplete or misleading information pertaining to such claim may be committing a fraudulent insurance act which is a crime and may subject such person to criminal or civil penalties, including fines, denial of benefits, and/or imprisonment. I certify the at-home COVID-19 test was purchased for my own personal diagnostic use (or use by a covered member of my family), not for employment purposes, has not been and will not be reimbursed by another source, and is not for resale. I certify that I have read and understand this form, and that all the information entered in this form is true and correct.
The archive of the hearing is on the website now. It starts around minute 28 where Senator Messmer reads off what his amendment does. There is still nothing posted in writing for it online yet. Only about 10 people showed up to the hearing to testify FOR medical freedom. That was disappointing in itself.