Share:
House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 2, 2021 12:23 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Dan Frankel |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | The Protection of Patient Trust Act |
| From Florida to Arizona to Pennsylvania, state lawmakers are trying to introduce the culture wars into doctors’ offices. This insidious brand of legislation requires medical professionals to stick to a script written by politicians, even when it conflicts with evidence-based, medically accurate information. If doctors refuse to mislead or withhold information from their patients, they could be hit with fines, the loss of their licenses to practice and even imprisonment. Some examples of these incursions into the provider-patient relationship include: --A Florida law, since thrown out by the courts after a long battle, prohibited practitioners from inquiring about and discussing safe storage of firearms where children live; --Twenty-nine states dictate what information a patient seeking abortion care should be given, including 5 that require medical professionals to inaccurately assert a link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer and 6 that require medically inaccurate information that a medication abortion can be safely stopped after the woman takes the first dose of pills; --Legislatures in Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Pennsylvania have all voted to limit health providers’ ability to discuss the chemicals involved in natural gas fracking with their patients who might be harmed by them; --Legislation currently under consideration in Alabama, New Hampshire, Arizona, Texas and Utah would all punish doctors for providing best practice, evidence-based, age appropriate gender affirming care to pediatric patients; and, --A bill introduced in this very body would levy fines against and threaten the licenses of doctors who attempt to encourage vaccine-hesitant parents to inoculate their children in accordance with CDC guidelines. My bill would protect the doctor-patient relationship from government interference, preventing the Commonwealth and all political subdivisions from requiring a health care practitioner to provide information that is not medically accurate and medically appropriate for the patient. This legislation would ensure that doctors would not be forced to provide a medical service that is not evidence-based and patient-appropriate, and could not be barred from sharing medically accurate information with their patients. |
Introduced as HB1444