2025 Year-End Legislative Wrap Up

After a 135-day budget stalemate, Pennsylvania lawmakers and Governor Josh Shapiro struck a bipartisan deal on a $50.09 billion spending plan for FY 2025-26. The impasse reflected not only differences over fiscal priorities but also a range of policy discussions that remain on the legislative agenda

Here is a look at the key issues PAMED has kept a close eye on this year — and will continue to monitor into the next year.

Private Equity - We see a lot of desire to have legislation passed to regulate the involvement of private equity in healthcare. We anticipate that this legislation would allow the Attorney General to seek binding legal agreement in mergers, allow for broadened financial vetting, and the ability to potentially block mergers/sales. To date a number of bills have been introduced addressing this issue but only one has seen real movement. House Bill 1460 (Borowski) passed the House on June 10 by a vote of 121-82. It was referred to the Senate Institutional Sustainability and Innovation Committee on June 18 but has received no further consideration. That committee continues to work on the issue but does not appear ready at this time to move legislation on the subject.

Venue - Currently there are a few bills that PAMED is tracking related to tort reform and venue. One item to highlight is Senate Bill 125 (Dush) which is a Joint Resolution to provide amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution to give the Pennsylvania General Assembly the authority to legislate venue and pass laws that can return common sense to venue selection in Pennsylvania. PAMED is supportive of SB 125 and will continue to work with the General Assembly to ensure medical malpractice cases are brought only in the county in which the alleged malpractice occurred. The Senate State Government Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 125 on October 27, and Ashley Wilkerson, MD, Lorraine Rosamilia, MD, and Mark Lopatin, MD all testified on behalf of PAMED and in support of Senate Bill 125. There are also few other items that PAMED supports related to tort reform, including Senate Bill 340 (Argall) which would reform the use of certificate of merit in medical liability actions. Senate Bill 340 would do three main things:

• define and establish the credentials of a licensed professional who reviews a claim of medical liability;
• establish a process where the statement of the licensed professional who has reviewed the claim will be shared with the medical professional defending the claim and will require that the statement is shared at the time of filing the certificate of merit, regardless of whether an attorney or unrepresented party is the person who prepared the certificate of merit; and
• require, as part of the statement, that the licensed professional be identified, and their curriculum vitae be included as part of the certificate of merit filing.

Scope of Practice - Senate Bill 25 (Bartolotta) and House Bill 739 (Guenst), bills that would allow for the independent practice of Nurse Practitioners, were both reintroduced. At the time of this writing neither bill received any consideration by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. We have also seen a push to allow psychologists to prescribe medications in House Bill 1000 (Frankel), which we oppose. PAMED, and our physician specialty partners, will continue to advocate for physician-led team-based care. We have also been working with our partners at the AMA and the Scope of Practice Partnership, who gave us a $50,000 grant, to bolster our public relations efforts across the Commonwealth.

Copay Accumulator - We have also been working with our partners at Pfizer to help support Senate Bill 268 (J. Ward), legislation that requires insurers or pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to count any amounts paid by the enrollee or paid on behalf of the enrollee by another party (i.e., drug manufacturer) when calculating an enrollee's overall contribution to the plan’s deductible or out-of-pocket limit. Pfizer has given PAMED a grant to provide us the ability to do more educational campaigns aimed at the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Midwives – Senate Bill 507 (Brown), a bill that would update provisions in the Medical Practice Act of 1985 regarding the practice of midwifery to include licensing certified midwives, was approved by the Senate Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee in September. This legislation passed the Senate in October and was voted out of the House Professional Licensure Committee on October 28. We anticipate final approval in the first quarter of 2026.

Maternal Health - Legislation requiring both private and government-provided health insurance to cover blood pressure monitors for pregnant or postpartum patients has passed the House. House Bill 1088 (Steele) and House Bill 1234 (Mayes) passed the House in June and July and were referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Currently they are awaiting further consideration.