‘Make Indi­ana Healthy Again,’ Gov. Imple­ments MAHA With Praise From RFK Jr, Dr. Oz

Indi­ana Gov­er­nor Mike Braun signed nine health-relat­ed exec­u­tive orders on April 15 address­ing the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram (SNAP), Med­ic­aid, fit­ness, along with food ingre­di­ents and source trans­paren­cy. 

“Today’s nine exec­u­tive orders reflect a new approach to health pol­i­cy in the state of Indi­ana focused on empow­er­ing every­one to live health­i­er, longer lives. Let’s Make Indi­ana Healthy Again!” Braun said, accord­ing to a press release from his office. 

The exec­u­tive orders ban can­dy and soft drinks from SNAP ben­e­fits, pro­mote trans­paren­cy about food ingre­di­ents in Indi­ana, increase con­sumers’ access to food direct­ly from farm­ers, and ini­ti­ate a study by the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Health about the con­nec­tion between diet and chron­ic ill­ness. He also man­dat­ed a Governor’s Fit­ness Test and School Fit­ness Month in schools. 

Indi­ana just became the first state in the union to ban soda AND can­dy from SNAP! pic.twitter.com/YvJTYndH0E

— Anna Mat­son (@AnnaRMatson) April 15, 2025

The oth­er exec­u­tive orders require able-bod­ied food stamp recip­i­ents to take on jobs, rein­state income and asset ver­i­fi­ca­tion to pre­vent fraud and order the Fam­i­ly and Social Ser­vices Agency (FSSA) and Indiana’s State Bud­get Agency to review fed­er­al SNAP statutes. The final exec­u­tive order is intend­ed to cut back Med­ic­aid eli­gi­bil­i­ty errors. 

“This isn’t the usu­al top-down, one-size-fits-all pub­lic health agen­da: We’re focused on root caus­es, giv­ing Hoosiers the trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion to make deci­sions affect­ing their health, mak­ing it eas­i­er to access to fresh local food from Indiana’s incred­i­ble farms, and tak­ing on the prob­lems in gov­ern­ment pro­grams that are con­tribut­ing to mak­ing our com­mu­ni­ties less healthy,” Braun said. 

Health and Human Ser­vices Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mehmet Oz, head of the Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid were also in atten­dance as Braun signed the exec­u­tive orders. (RELATED: ‘The Evi­dence Is Over­whelm­ing’: RFK Jr. Calls On CDC To Stop Rec­om­mend­ing Flu­o­ride)

“Thank you, Gov­er­nor Braun, for your coura­geous and vision­ary lead­er­ship to Make Indi­ana Healthy Again,” Kennedy said, accord­ing to the press release. “I urge every gov­er­nor across Amer­i­ca to fol­low your lead by sign­ing sim­i­lar exec­u­tive orders in their states to improve nutri­tion stan­dards in SNAP, increase trans­paren­cy around food dyes and addi­tives, imple­ment phys­i­cal fit­ness tests in schools, expand farm-to-school pro­grams, and embrace the full scope of your trans­for­ma­tive health agen­da. Togeth­er, we can Make Amer­i­ca Healthy Again.”

Indi­ana just became the first state in the union to ban soda AND can­dy from SNAP! pic.twitter.com/YvJTYndH0E

— Anna Mat­son (@AnnaRMatson) April 15, 2025

Oz also voiced his sup­port for the exec­u­tive orders. 

“We’re delight­ed to work with our state and local partners—who are crit­i­cal to advanc­ing the Make Amer­i­ca Healthy Again agen­da,” Oz said. “By pri­or­i­tiz­ing pre­ven­tion, prop­er nutri­tion, and healthy lifestyle choic­es, we can set our younger gen­er­a­tions up for a life­time of suc­cess.”

In March, Kennedy was also present when West Vir­ginia‘s Gov­er­nor Patrick Mor­risey announced he had signed a bill ban­ning cer­tain syn­thet­ic food dyes and preser­v­a­tives from food sold in the state.