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More than 200 Hoosiers from 20 Indiana counties gathered in Scottsburg for the EverybodyIN Southern Indiana Town Hall for All, and more than 1200 people joined virtually via Facebook and YouTube.

 

The EverybodyIN Southern Indiana Town Hall for All featured powerful presentations by Hoosier Action members about their experiences with the shortcomings of health care, housing and the barriers and stigma associated with substance use and incarceration.

“A moral society looks after the needs of even the least of these and empowers everyone to have an opportunity to flourish in life,” said Hoosier Action Ohio River Valley leader Pastor Gabe Pfeffer, who shared his experiences with medical debt and called    We’re talking about freedom, but being shackled for decades of debt doesn’t sound like freedom to me.”

Manuel Garcia Arturo, a young professional, immigrant and Columbus resident, shared how the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), a form of Medicaid, provided him with essential health coverage after being diagnosed with two chronic illnesses.

Clark County Mom Elizabeth Chun, called out Indiana’s private school voucher program for shifting money from public schools, to unaccountable private ones. “The inability [of private schools] to meet the needs of the most vulnerable students should mean they don’t get to keep profiting from our tax dollars… This has become a question of who gets a future in Indiana.”

Mother-daughter-duo Kyla Thom and Kari Carter,  leaders with Hoosier Action Care, Not Cuffs shared their experiences with how harm reduction, a life-saving, evidence-based approach to the overdose crisis, saves lives. Distributing resources like narcan, the antidote to an opioid overdose, and drug test strips, can prevent overdose deaths by alerting people who use drugs to the presence of fentanyl.

Monroe County Hoosier Action leader and Mom Ashleigh Kerhburg told the room about how having a pre-scheduled postpartum healthcare appointment saved her life when struggling with her mental health after the birth of one of her six kids. She noted that had she not scheduled this appointment in advance, it would’ve taken her months for her to get in with a provider, a delay in care which could’ve had devastating consequences. 

The forum also included Indiana gubernatorial candidates Jennifer McCormick and Donald Rainwater, and a statement from Indidna State Senator Vaneta Becker, who pledged her public support to introduce legislation to tackle the state’s growing medical debt crisis.

As the Town Hall drew to a close, attendees all checked their voter registration, and learned how to find information on early voting or their polling place on Election Day, Tuesday November 5th. Early voting has already begun in Indiana, and if you’re in the Hoosier State, find out where and how to be a voter this year by going to indianavoters.in.gov!

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