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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowProperty tax reform, Medicaid adjustments and water withdrawals are among the top priorities of the Indiana Senate Republicans’ 2025 platform, party leaders announced Wednesday.
Lawmakers reconvened Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse to kick off the 2025 legislative session. In a news conference, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray of Martinsville and five Senate leaders unveiled five priority bills that are part of the caucus’ agenda. The bills reflect both voters’ concerns about property taxes and health care costs and Gov.-elect Mike Braun’s campaign promises. The bills are not yet posted online.
House Republicans have not yet released their legislative priorities.
Property tax relief
Senate Bill 1 will be the caucus’ primary property tax relief bill and is expected to include significant language from Braun’s agenda.
Author Sen. Travis Holdman of Markle said he expects the bill to evolve over time.
“There was no shortage of ideas about what to do on property taxes,” said Holdman, who is Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy chair. “That’s why we are treating this bill like we would treat the budget bill.”
Senate Bill 1 and other similar bills that are expected to be filed come in response to taxpayers’ complaints over surges in tax bills, Holdman said. The caucus is parsing through Braun’s plan—which includes resetting bills to 2021 levels—as it tailors its bill.
Under Braun’s plan, increases in property tax bills would be capped at 2% annually for seniors, low-income Hoosiers and families with children under 18. Increases would be capped at 3% for all other property owners.
Under the plan, Hoosiers with an assessed home value over $125,000 could deduct 60% of their home’s assessed value for property tax purposes through a homestead deduction. Homeowners with an assessed value under $125,000 could use the 60% deduction, plus the current standard deduction of $48,000.
Republicans are trying to find the “sweet spot,” Holdman said, to balance local government revenue and tax relief. He said that will likely include a shift of the local tax burden from property taxes to income taxes.
Several lawmakers have also filed property tax adjustment bills.
Medicaid changes
After learning about a $985 million shortfall in the state’s Medicaid budget, a central question heading into this session is how lawmakers will curb or account for rising costs.
Coupled with a tight budget, Sen. Ryan Mishler of Mishawaka said Medicaid’s unsustainable growth has required lawmakers to make cuts.
“Do we want to cut education to not have waitlists?” he said. “I mean, those are the decisions we’re faced with.”
Senate Bill 2, which Mishler authored, will address the use of presumptive eligibility, which offers temporary health coverage for low-income people not yet receiving Medicaid. Reforms would include a determination of qualified hospitals and standards for hospitals to follow.
The bill will also reign in the Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP, to its intended purpose, said Mishler, who is Senate Appropriations chair. The program was created to support Hoosiers who can’t afford private health care but don’t qualify for Medicaid.
HIP was expanded years later, growing to about 762,000 Hoosiers in 2024. Mishler said they want to reset the program to manage it in its original form. The bill would limit a person to 36 months on the plan and have work requirements.
“There’s a lot of work to be done with Medicaid,” he said, “but I think this bill is a start to kind of work with the administration and get that under control.”
Mishler said estimates of cost savings or the number of Hoosiers who could be impacted were not available yet.
Water withdrawals
Following statewide debate over water quantity concerns for new developments, Senate Bill 4 would require long-distance and basin-to-basin water transfers to obtain a permit from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Sen. Eric Koch of Bedford said this change would add a layer of oversight.
“Indiana has become a favorable location for some up-and-coming industries that are highly water-dependent,” Koch, the Senate Utilities chair, said. “This is a great thing for the future of our state, but it also brought to the forefront the issues in how we allocate our water resources before we have a project that’s going to move a large amount of water from one place to another.”
The LEAP Research and Innovation District in Lebanon sparked concern and debate over how the state manages its water supply. The project requires outside water because Boone County doesn’t have sufficient sources to support long-term plans for the 9,000-acre campus, but the wider region doesn’t have a water shortage.
The state’s ambitious economic development district seeks to land more advanced manufacturing businesses, such as microelectronics and life sciences, which tend to be water-intensive.
Thus, two water infrastructure projects in the district—including a 35-mile Wabash River aquifer pipeline and an extension of the Citizens Energy system—have been proposed.
Fiscal responsibility measures
Two other priority bills also align with Braun campaign promises to lower health care costs and improve government efficiency.
State Sen. Justin Busch of Fort Wayne filed Senate Bill 3 to lower health care costs by pushing insurers and related actors to act in the best financial interests of their clients. Busch did not elaborate on specific details of the bill Wednesday.
Senate Bill 5, authored by Sen. Scott Baldwin of Noblesville, would require any state contract over $500,000 to include performance expectations. Penalties and placement on a no-bid list are potential consequences for a company failing to meet benchmarks, he said.
Agencies would also need to submit quarterly progress reports to the State Budget Committee detailing progress of major state contracts. An agency would also need to undergo a budget committee review before making significant contract amendments or applying for new federal funds that require an state-funded match, Baldwin said.
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We really need to tighten up the Medicaid to where it is functioning as intended and is constitutional.
Constitutional?
Look, if they were serious about medical costs, they’d be rolling back all the consolidation they’ve allowed.
And they’d be going after the networks that get in trouble for hiring a bunch of providers and paying them based on the number of tests and services they refer their patients to get at their network facilities.
And they’d be doing everything they could to get people into regular visits to medical providers, as opposed to only going to the ER when things get bad, because it is way cheaper.
They’re not doing any of that because they really don’t care. They just don’t want to pay for it. Get cancer or get in a car crash? Sucks to be you!