Indiana lawmakers have been aggressive in cutting taxes in recent years, the state Senate's top budget writer said Thursday as his committee started reviewing a spending plan that leaves out Republican Gov. Mike Pence's proposed 10-percent income tax cut.
Indiana agencies are cutting jobless benefits, furloughing National Guard members and losing food funds for the Women Infants and Children program because of the automatic federal budget cuts, officials said Monday.
As an environmental policy analyst, the governor’s ordering of a moratorium on environmental regulation concerns me. It should also concern Indiana residents and businesses.
Former Indianapolis Power & Light Co. CEO Ann Murtlow will take the helm of the United Way of Central Indiana on April 1, the organization announced Wednesday afternoon. She’ll be the first new chief at the local not-for-profit since 1998.
Something important is missing on planning desks of Indianapolis leaders as they contemplate mass transit, waterworks and other big-ticket projects. It is well past time for a strategy for a new criminal justice complex outside of downtown.
Promising to cut taxes is not political leadership. It’s cheap and easy.
FINALIST: Community Achievement in Health Care
WINNER: Community Achievement in Health Care
The White House has tallied the impact of automatic cuts to the federal budget set to take effect this week. Indiana will lose at least $100 million in support for the military, education, child care, seniors and services for other populations.
John Kasich (Ohio), Rick Snyder (Michigan), Jan Brewer (Arizona), Brian Sandoval (Nevada), Susana Martinez (New Mexico) and Jack Dalrymple (North Dakota) are all conservative Republican governors opposed to the Affordable Care Act.
Here’s what we don’t know: what it will look like, what amenities users can expect, and how it will link to rapid-transit lines still in the planning stages. At the moment, the 1.9-acre parcel is a city-owned parking lot, situated on the south side of Washington Street between Delaware and Alabama streets. But architecture, urban planning and mass transit fans imagine it as an empty canvas, with the potential to showcase a signature structure that triggers more development nearby.
Roche AG and Eli Lilly and Co., two drugmakers racing to develop treatments for some of the least understood brain disorders, may gain the most from a U.S. government boost in funding to fully map the human brain.
Former Amerigroup Corp. CEO Jim Carlson will leave WellPoint Inc., the company told Bloomberg News—three days after he lost a bid for the top job at the Indianapolis-based health insurer. Carlson will leave WellPoint on Feb. 28, according to a statement e-mailed by company spokeswoman Kristin Binns. He had joined the nation's second-largest health insurer in December, after WellPoint closed its $4.9 billion acquisition of Amerigroup. WellPoint named Joe Swedish, CEO of the not-for-profit hospital system Trinity Health Corp., to be its next leader, ending a six-month search. Carlson, 60, was among the other candidates under consideration. “After helping close the Amerigroup transaction and assisting over the past six weeks with the integration of the two companies, Jim Carlson will be leaving WellPoint effective Feb. 28,” WellPoint said in the statement. While Carlson had signed a contract to remain with WellPoint for two years, the pact allowed the two sides to part under “changed circumstances,” said Carl McDonald, a Citigroup analyst, in a Feb. 13 note to clients. The WellPoint statement didn’t mention Carlson’s contract. Binns declined to comment when asked how Carlson’s contract would be handled. WellPoint said last month that Richard Zoretic, Amerigroup’s former chief operating officer, would run its Medicaid business.
In a combative Feb. 13 letter to the Obama administration, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence asked the federal government to approve a three-year extension of the Healthy Indiana Plan health savings accounts in lieu of an expansion of a federal Medicaid system. "Medicaid is broken. It has a well-documented history of substantial waste, fraud and abuse. It has failed to keep pace with private market innovations that have created efficiencies, controlled costs and improved quality," he wrote to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. According to the Associated Press, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration requested a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, seeking to enroll residents who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line in the HIP program — a move that would effectively cover roughly 400,000 residents through health savings accounts instead of traditional Medicaid. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act had called for all states to expand eligibility to the traditional Medicaid program for all residents making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty limit. House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said Pence's move puts thousands of jobs at risks by playing politics with the expansion. It's unclear whether the federal agency in charge of Medicaid will sign off on a longer extension and expansion of the Indiana program. The agency approved a one-year extension last month but ruled out minimum payments. Former Gov. Mitch Daniels sought a three-year extension of the program in 2011, but was rejected.
Bioanalytical Systems Inc. swung to a profit in the quarter ended Dec. 31, the West Lafayatte-based company announced Feb. 14. The company, which conducts preclinical testing for pharmaceutical companies, earned $139,000 during the quarter, or 2 cents per share, compared with a loss in the same quarter a year ago of $1.5 million, or 21 cents per share. But revenue in the quarter fell 23 percent, compared with a year ago, to $5.8 million. Jacqueline Lemke, who was recently named CEO after serving in the role on an interim basis, said in a prepared statement: "With the notable exception of revenue, all of our operating metrics moved decisively in the right direction in the first quarter compared to the prior year. We believe these improvements are sustainable.”
A federal audit recommended that the Indiana Medicaid program refund more than $5.8 million because it failed to ensure that Logansport State Hospital had complied with special conditions for psychiatric hospitals. The audit, released Friday by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the hospital failed to demonstrate it met staffing and medical-record requirements from the start of 2008 through the end of 2010. So the inspector general thinks the state of Indiana should refund all federal funds used to pay that hospital during that time period—about $5.84 million—as well as any federal funds paid after 2010 if the hospital continued to be out of compliance. It's unclear whether Indiana will need to refund all the recommended amounts or when that would happen. Audits usually begin a period of negotiations between the two sides. The agency that administers the Indiana Medicaid program, the Family and Social Services Administration, issued a brief statement Friday saying the agency disagrees with the audit findings and plans to work with the federal government to reach "a reasonable resolution."
Dutch diagnostics maker Qiagen NV will work with Eli Lilly and Co. to develop companion tests that could identify patients who could be helped by Lilly's drugs. According to the Associated Press, the companies did not disclose terms of the new collaboration, but described it as a "broad" partnership that will cover "all therapeutic areas." In September 2011, Qiagen started working with Indianapolis-based Lilly on a test designed to identify patients who might be helped by an experimental blood cancer drug. In July 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a genetic test Qiagen developed that is designed to help doctors more quickly determine which late-stage colon cancer patients will respond to the drug Erbitux and which won't benefit from the treatment. Erbitux is marketed by Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. In January, Lilly partnered with a unit of Agilent Technologies Inc. to develop a test that can identify cancer patients who could benefit from an experimental cancer drug Lilly is developing.
A federal audit released Friday recommends Indiana's human services agency refund more than $5.8 million in Medicaid funds because Logansport State Hospital did not show it had complied with special conditions for psychiatric hospitals.
Indiana University Health Physicians added 39 doctors from the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at the IU School of Medicine. The group was founded in 1958 and is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 programs nationally. IU Health Physicians now employs more than 1,000 doctors. The group, which also includes five nurse practitioners, offers care at IU Health University Hospital, Wishard Health Services and the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center, and will soon expand to IU Health North and IU Health Saxony hospitals. They also see patients in satellite offices in Batesville, Carmel, Greenfield, Greensburg, Lebanon, Martinsville, McCordsville and Zionsville.
Elona Biotechnologies Inc., a drugmaker trying to launch a generic version of insulin, says it has found a solution to its default on more than $8 million in economic development loans and incentives from the city of Greenwood. Elona announced Feb. 6 that it has reached an agreement under which the company will be acquired by a group of private investors. It did not disclose the names of the investors or the amount of financing. "While terms of the transaction are confidential, Elona will receive sufficient funds to correct its default situation with the city of Greenwood, hire management and scientific talent to move the company forward, and proceed with clinical trials to support the registration of its generic human insulin under development for the treatment of diabetes," the company said in a prepared statement. An executive team of pharmaceutical industry veterans with extensive experience will join Elona as staff or consultants, the company said. The company told Greenwood officials of its financial troubles in late January. That information prompted the Greenwood Redevelopment Commission to vote to declare Elona in default on $8.4 million worth of economic development incentives the city approved for the company in 2010. The city loaned $6.4 million to help Elona build a 50,000-square-foot, $28 million insulin production plant in Greenwood and hire 70 workers. The city also gave Elona $1.5 million to help it win approval for its insulin from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and $500,000 for equipment.
Eli Lilly and Co. said it is halting testing of an experimental drug for rheumatoid arthritis because the studies show the medicine is not effective. The decision to stop testing the therapy, called tabalumab, in rheumatoid arthritis wasn’t based on safety concerns, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker said Feb. 7 in a prepared statement. Lilly said it will continue to develop the drug as a treatment for lupus. In December, Lilly said it was stopping one of three late-stage rheumatoid arthritis studies of tabalumab after it failed to provide a benefit. Lilly then analyzed the other two studies and determined the drug was unlikely to help patients. The setback comes as Lilly, counting on sales of new medicines to revive growth, faces generic competition to schizophrenia drug Zyprexa, which generated $5 billion in annual revenue before losing patent protection in October 2011.
