WASHINGTON — When President Trump introduced Wednesday that Vice President Pence would take cost of the nation’s coronavirus response, he repeatedl
WASHINGTON — When President Trump introduced Wednesday that Vice President Pence would take cost of the nation’s coronavirus response, he repeatedly touted the “nice well being care” in Indiana throughout Mr. Pence’s time as governor there, including, “He’s received a sure expertise for this.”
So what does Mr. Pence’s document on well being care seem like? He has no coaching or experience in well being coverage. Paradoxically, the 2 well being initiatives that he received essentially the most consideration for in Indiana are actions that many within the Republican Get together have strongly opposed.
In 2015, he was one of many first Republican governors who agreed to increase Medicaid underneath the Inexpensive Care Act, a transfer that others in his social gathering have shunned due to their opposition to the regulation.
That very same yr, he allowed — albeit reluctantly — a program to offer clear needles for intravenous drug customers in a rural county that was in the throes of an HIV outbreak.
For weeks, Mr. Pence delayed allowing public well being staff to distribute the clear needles to sluggish the epidemic, stating ethical opposition to drug use. He relented because the variety of HIV instances approached 100 (they in the end surpassed 200) and medical doctors from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention pleaded with him — and after taking a few more nights to “pray on it,” in keeping with Dr. Jerome Adams, the state well being commissioner on the time and now america surgeon normal.
In the present day, his determination to permit a needle alternate — initially just for 30 days — is believed to have played an important role in slowing the epidemic.
However whereas his determination allowed such exchanges to open statewide, no state funding was made out there for them. Extra broadly, critics mentioned that Mr. Pence, like earlier Indiana governors, had failed to take a position adequately in public well being.
“All his public well being insurance policies in Indiana had been extra about his beliefs or ideology, and never proof based mostly or round knowledge,” mentioned Carrie Ann Lawrence, affiliate director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at Indiana College.
As a member of Congress from 2001 to 2013, his deep opposition to abortion led him to provoke efforts to strip federal funding from Deliberate Parenthood. A Deliberate Parenthood clinic had been the one place for HIV testing in Scott County, the place the outbreak passed off. It closed in 2013, largely on account of cuts in state public well being funding.