Indiana Business Journal: Lilly CEO: Indiana must improve education, reduce health care costs to stay competitive.
CNBC: Indiana GOP’s leadership created abysmal future for Hoosier families
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Democratic Party, the organization that advocates for the future of Indiana and its families, today echoed the recent analysis from Eli Lilly Chairman and CEO David Ricks about the state of Indiana and the future it’s creating for families. Ricks pointed out that the Indiana Republican Party’s 18-year record has led to other states being “far ahead and more competitive” than the Hoosier State. Specifically, Indiana currently has a D+ rated education system and an F-rated quality of life. These rankings – along with a relentless partisan agenda by the Indiana GOP – has led to the state earning an embarrassing F-rating in the workforce.
It’s been no secret: the state has been lambasted over the Indiana GOP’s obsession with culture wars that fulfill a national agenda, not an Indiana one. This includes passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), calling on educators to teach Nazism impartiality, targeting transgender children, and diminishing the strength of Hoosier workers via “right to work” legislation. Truth is, Indiana Republicans have been unable to deliver a brighter future for families because they have no actual plan for the state – just extremism.
In contrast, Indiana Democrats are hard at work creating a better future for Hoosier families. With the American Rescue Plan and The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (The Jobs Act), André Carson, Frank Mrvan, and Democrats at the statehouse are creating good-paying jobs, combating high childcare costs, funding public education at levels not seen in a decade, and revitalizing the state’s other infrastructure systems – like broadband. Democrats have delivered the kitchen-table issues while the Indiana GOP has delivered partisanship.
Indiana Business Journal: Lilly CEO: Indiana must improve education, reduce health care costs to stay competitive.
One area Indiana is not thriving, he said, is education—both in the performance in test scores of students and the educational attainment of the workforce. Only 37% of Indiana’s elementary and middle school students tested proficient in math in the 2019 statewide proficiency tests, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing scores even lower.
“That’s a very difficult statistic to look at,” Ricks said. “If you look at what our economic is based on … it’s projected that about 30% of the current (traditional) jobs will be lost in the next decade, replaced by math- and science-heavy positions.”
He also pointed to Indiana’s high cost of health care, an expense that falls heavily on employers, who pay a huge share of the price for health plans. On top of that, Indiana’s high rate of people with chronic disease and the state’s high mortality rate for heart disease, diabetes and other maladies can make some companies leery about investing here, due to the possibility of high rates of absenteeism, Ricks said.
He also warned that Indiana needs to move quicker to offer energy options that are greener, rather than traditional coal-based electricity. Other states are moving faster on this score, he said.
“If we cannot offer energy that has a sustainability mix to it, we won’t land the next big employer here in the state,” Ricks said.
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