PPAC is sponsoring five bills that seek to improve access to abortion and reproductive health care and ensure protections amidst the shifting legal landscape. The bill package includes the following legislation:
- SB 487 (Atkins) Protect California’s Reproductive Health Care Providers – Protects reproductive health care providers from adverse actions as the result of another state’s law restricting comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. This bill ensures providers do not face adverse actions related to their ability to participate in public benefit programs or in health plan and insurance contracts due to enforcement of another state’s hostile law.
- AB 352 (Bauer-Kahan) Protect Patient Privacy and Confidentiality – Enhances privacy protections for patients who access sensitive health care services in California by ensuring critical health information is not automatically shared with other states through health information exchange.
- AB 1646 (Nguyen) Facilitates Guest Rotations in Medical Residency Programs – Allows for residents from other states to participate in guest rotations in an approved postgraduate training program or an ACGME certified training site in California if the person has graduated from a medical school and is engaged in postgraduate training outside of California.
- AB 1707 (Pacheco) Reproductive Health Care Provider Protections – Enhances protections for reproductive health care providers from adverse actions as the result of another state’s law restricting comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. This bill expands protections from automatic adverse action by a California licensing entity from to all healing arts licensees, protects clinic and hospital licensure, and ensures hospital staff medical staff privileges cannot be denied or revoked based on enforcement of another state’s hostile law.
- AB 576 (Weber) Medication Abortion Equity Act – Aligns medication abortion policies with clinical guidelines and evidence-based research. Requires the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to update its Medi-Cal policies to support full reimbursement for the provision of medication abortion and ensure that patients that rely on Medi-Cal can access medication abortion in line with up-to-date clinical guidelines and peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
Additionally, to improve health outcomes for patients, PPAC is sponsoring two bills to ensure that community-based health centers are equipped to expand services related to behavioral health care and maternal health care:
- AB 492 (Pellerin) Behavioral Health Integration in Reproductive Health Care Pilot – Establishes two programs in the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to improve patients’ access to mild-to-moderate behavioral health services.
- AB 583 (Wicks) Invest in Efforts to Improve Health Care for Pregnant and Birthing People – Establishes a pilot program to provide grants to community-based doula groups and community-based organizations to provide full-spectrum doula care to ( women and birthing people whose communities suffer from disproportionately high rates of negative birth outcomes, but who are not eligible for Medi-Cal coverage; and incarcerated women and birthing people. This bill aims to address adverse maternal and infant health outcomes by expanding maternal health care to birthing people who experience disproportionately high negative birth outcomes and recognizes that all birthing people deserve dignity in birthing, including incarcerated people.