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Reproductive Rights & Healthcare
Rep. Frankel has been one of the fiercest champions for women’s reproductive rights and healthcare in the legislature for two decades. He organized the Women’s Health Caucus in the mid-2000s to help legislators quickly respond to attacks on reproductive health care, including abortion rights and access to family planning.
Dissatisfied with always being on the defensive, he worked with advocacy organizations to craft a proactive package of bills to advance women’s health and equality in the Commonwealth, the Agenda for Women’s Health.
As Democratic chairman of the Health Committee, Rep. Frankel manages opposition to the barrage of anti-choice legislation that Republican leaders bring up for votes, year after year.
His signature legislation, the Protection of Patient Trust Act, would protect providers from being forced by legislators to provide false information to their patients, or to withhold information from them. The legislation is considered a national model for protecting providers in this climate of political polarization, where the exam room has become a battleground.
The same bill also would protect doctors who provide gender affirming healthcare. Every major medical association in the United States recognizes the necessity of transition-related care as a treatment option for improving the physical and mental health of transgender people. Study after study has shown that due to heightened risks of suicide and self-harm, forgoing gender-affirming care can have tragic consequences. Rep. Frankel will fight to ensure that gender diverse people continue to get the evidence-based care that they need, without interference from politicians.
Rep. Frankel believes health care access is a fundamental human right, and has worked to expand affordable, quality access. In following legislation around scope of practice, evidence-based medicine, and healthcare contracting, he’s made himself an expert and closely monitors legislation impacting how healthcare is paid for and delivered.
His bill to limit what can be paid for prescription drugs would protect Pennsylvanians from an industry that has proven, time and again, that it cannot regulate itself.
In the UPMC Highmark conflict, Frankel was unafraid to take a strong stand on behalf of consumers and community members, supporting broad access to hospitals as community institutions and contracts that hold down health care costs for all of us.
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About
Since 1999, Rep. Dan Frankel has served Pennsylvania’s 23rd district, which includes the neighborhoods of Squirrel Hill, Oakland, Point Breeze, Regent Square, Greenfield, and Shadyside.
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