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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | April 17, 2023 04:05 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Lisa A. Borowski |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Removing Duplicative & Redundant Health Centers |
| Public health centers in the Commonwealth play an integral role in our community safety by providing services such as communicable disease surveillance and investigation, immunization services, testing and treatment of certain conditions, and home visiting. Each county has a public health center. Some counties have chosen to operate their own health centers, some rely on centers run by the State Department of Health. Act 87 of 1996 required the Department of Health to continue their state health centers in perpetuity, without any accommodation for counties establishing their own health departments and opening their own health centers after enactment. Therefore, the Department of Health is required to operate state health centers in counties that are approved and providing provide services through county health centers. Decades later, this requirement has become a problem. Delaware County is the first county to establish a health department in the Commonwealth in over 30 years, and Lackawanna County is currently in the process of establishing their own health department. It is time to remove the redundancy of an operating state health center in counties where this the local government is now providing this service. My legislation would only apply to those counties establishing new county health departments approved under the Local Health Administration law. No health services would be lost as the county would now be the provider. Please join me by cosponsoring this legislation to better manage taxpayer dollars by removing the requirement that the state provide a public health center in a county that can provide a county public health center. |
Introduced as HB1131