The Governor prioritized funding to ensure Pennsylvanians have access to the recovery support services they need.
- Awarded almost $9 million in grants via the Department of Drugs and Alcohol Programs from the historic opioid settlement spearheaded by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro to four counties to establish and expand services for individuals with mental health and substance disorders.
- Allocated an additional $10 million in Department of Drugs and Alcohol Programs’ grant funding to establish six regional recovery hubs to expand resources for Pennsylvanians in recovery in their community and to 19 organizations to establish and expand substance use disorder services.
- Awarded $22 million to help approximately 400 substance use disorder treatment professionals with student loan repayment as an incentive to retain this critical workforce.
- The Shapiro Administration distributed over 400,000 xylazine/fentanyl test strips and approximately 127,000 naloxone kits through the Pennsylvania Overdose Prevention Program to community-based organizations and other groups.
Governor Shapiro secured vital funding to ensure Pennsylvanians receive high-quality healthcare services while lowering the costs of prescription drugs.
- Followed through on his commitment to reform pharmacy benefit managers’ operations to help lower out-of-pocket costs for Pennsylvanians on prescription medication, bring price transparency to bad actors, and support locally-owned pharmacies.
- Signed a landmark, bipartisan bill into law that requires healthcare insurers to cover preventative breast and ovarian cancer screenings for high-risk women at no cost.
- Required health insurers to pay for covered healthcare services through telemedicine.
- Established a health resource center in Darlington Township that helped over 600 residents impacted by the Norfolk Southern train derailment who had health, pet, farm animal, and air and water quality concerns, and rolled out a health resource network for residents.
- Repeatedly secured funding to expand programming to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity in the Commonwealth and signed Act 5, which requires more data to be shared between the Maternal Mortality Review Committee and Department of Health around maternal mortality.
- Secured $92 million across his first and second budgets to help more Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities and/or autism (ID/A) get off the emergency waiting list for home and community-based services.
- Required health insurers to provide coverage for autism services and to ensure children who stutter can access speech therapy.
- Created a Behavioral Health Council to create a plan of action to streamline and improve the accessibility of mental health and substance use disorder services in the Commonwealth.
The Shapiro-Davis Administration is investing in our critical healthcare workers like doctors, nurses, and direct support professionals.
- Secured $280 million in state and federal funding to help raise wages for direct support professionals who provide care for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities and/or autism.
- Signed the FY2023-24 budget with $50 million for Hospital and Healthsystem Emergency Relief to support the vital work of hospitals.
- Worked with the General Assembly to secure $20.7 million in funding for increased mileage reimbursements for ambulance services, protecting access to healthcare and ensuring that EMS workers and first responders are properly reimbursed.
- Secured a $20 million increase for county mental health services in his second budget, which also included access to another $100 million for student mental health services in schools.
- Signed the FY2024-25 budget that allocated $34.5 million to support rural hospitals.
- Eliminated the Department of Human Services’ Medicaid provider enrollment backlog, which stood at 35,000 when he took office, lowering barriers to serving the more than 3.6 million Pennsylvanians in the Medicaid program.
- Provided $2 million in first-time state funding for nursing apprenticeships.
- The Department of State permitted registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who hold multistate licenses through the interstate Nurse Licensure Compact to practice in the Commonwealth, helping to reduce Pennsylvania’s nursing shortage.
- Through his focus on streamlining government services, the Department of State reduced the turnaround time for pharmacist licenses from 26 days to 5 days and for doctors from 43 days to 5 days.
Being able to help with [student loan debt] really helps individuals come to work every day to be the best they can be.
- Brandon Williams, Clinical Director at Silver Pines Treatment Center
The Administration is helping older adults age with dignity while also providing Pennsylvania’s veterans with high quality resources.
- Rolled out Aging Our Way, PA—a 10-year strategic roadmap for older adult services in Pennsylvania, ensuring services meet the needs of older adults.
- Established the first-ever-in-PA Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Division to support Pennsylvanians living with these conditions and their caregivers.
- Signed SB 607 into law that allowed 20,000 seniors to maintain their prescription medication benefits despite Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.
- Secured final allocation of a $52 million federal grant for the construction/renovation project at the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home.
- Allocated more than $14 million through the Department of Health to 127 long-term care facilities to help maintain quality healthcare through workforce development, staff retention, and infrastructure for residents and staff.
- Increased state funding for the care of seniors and adults with physical disabilities living in skilled nursing facilities by $75 million.
- Secured $5 million for the Help at Home (OPTIONS) program to reduce the waitlist of seniors seeking services, allowing them to stay in their homes.
The Governor will always defend Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedom to choose.
- Announced his Administration would not defend the state law banning Medicaid coverage for abortion as the ban violated the Commonwealth’s constitution and urged the Commonwealth Court to strike down the ban.
- Issued new guidance strongly encouraging Pennsylvania health insurers to cover over-the-counter contraceptives with or without a prescription—resulting in major insurers announcing they would cover these contraceptives.
- Called on the federal government to ensure over-the-counter contraception is fully covered by insurance, expanding access to reproductive healthcare.
- Filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing the court should overrule a lower court decision that reversed the Federal Drug Administration’s decades-long approval of an abortion pill, mifepristone.
- Joined the Reproductive Freedom Alliance with governors from 20 states to safeguard the freedom to choose and improve abortion and reproductive health access.
- Maintained former Governor Tom Wolf’s Executive Order ensuring that non-Pennsylvania residents seeking abortion care in the Commonwealth can do so without fear of arrest or detention at the request of another state.
- Launched a Commonwealth website to provide resources for patients seeking abortion care in Pennsylvania in the wake of right-wing judicial attacks on abortion.