As of July, Doctor Stephen Stack has taken charge of the state's cabinet for Health and Family Services.

He is overseeing Kentucky's largest State department, which administers billions of dollars in health benefits and social services.

He testified before state lawmakers today.

So we've recently gone through this Covid phase, and and we're seeing the Covid vaccine now no longer recommended to pregnant women or children.

And I want to know what you're doing to recommend for our public health departments to make sure people coming in who are vaccine are fully informed of the potential risks.

Now that that are now known, informed consent and education of a patient has been part of this process all along.

So every time a patient goes to seek medical care, they engage with a clinician.

They should be engaging with a licensed health care provider who's licensed and overseen by, you know, boards of licensure in the state.

And they should discuss their specific circumstances, have their questions answered, and then make an informed decision about what they would prefer to do.

So I think that process has been in place and continues to be in place.

And so the vaccines are still FDA approved.

The evidence is very compelling that they reduce danger and risk, but that is a decision that would be made between the patient and their licensed health care provider.

In Kentucky, we never mandated or required the Covid vaccine for anybody.

The state of Kentucky, not the executive branch or the legislative branch.

You know, I mean, people lost their jobs over that, because of the forceful recommendations coming down from our state government.

And, I mean, the damage that was done is just atrocious.

And we've really not ever recovered from that.

But back to my original question.

There is information that's exchanged between a doctor and their patient, which is obviously so important.

But how are you recommending the patient has fully informed consent on the dangers of that vaccine, especially from our public health departments and people who come in to ask about that?

Because I don't know if you know, but the ingredient list was blank.

It was a blank sheet of paper.

No one knew what was in that vaccine.

Now we know, and now we know the dangers.

How are people getting that informed consent by engaging with their licensed health care provider, like I said.

And as far as for us, I think the evidence is overwhelming that the benefit is overwhelmingly positive.

And and there are others who I mean, there's different perspectives people can take, but the scientific evidence is that we've given those vaccines to billions of humans and saved millions of lives.

Now, other lawmakers asked a stack, what's the value of the state's costliest service?

That's Medicaid.

You know, we got around $22 billion that we handle, and Medicaid around nearly 3 billion when it comes to Snap.

So I want to know, what type of outcomes you're to anticipate or what outcomes are you seeing based on the data you collected.

Because we're we're seeing I'm seeing some rather alarming issues, concerns, and through our Medicaid Oversight Board on the outcomes and how we're spending our money and the and the payback we're getting in terms of having people having a healthier lifestyle.

We have seen our health rankings nationwide go from 47 to 41 over the last 5 to 7 years, and that's America's health, America's health rankings.

There's a lot of things that go into that.

So let me please be clear.

I don't want to oversimplify this, but but a really big part of it is people without health insurance live sicker and die younger.

And so in our state, which is historically one of the socioeconomically most impoverished states in the country, access to health insurance and access, therefore, to health care has been a challenge.

And I appreciate there are different perspectives on on Medicaid and its role.

But in Kentucky, one and three Kentuckians are on the Medicaid program that access to health care has enabled them, I think, to be able to be more productive and engaged in society and therefore show up at work and do the things that they need to do.

Doctor stark has worked for the state for more than five years.

He joined at the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, serving as commissioner of the Department for Public Health.

Before that, he was, the president of the American Medical Association.

He spent much of his early caree