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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 19, 2022 01:10 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Dan Frankel and Rep. Arvind Venkat |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Barring Non-Compete Agreements in Healthcare Employment |
| Pennsylvania is in a minority of states that have no laws on the books to limit the use of restrictive covenants -- also known as non-competes -- which puts us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to attracting top talent to our medical community. The Commonwealth allows medical employers to use non-competes to require that when doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals leave their jobs — even if they’re fired or don’t have their contracts renewed — they may have to leave the state or leave their profession for up to two years. And they can’t even tell their patients where they’ve gone. Too many of our constituents have had the unsettling experience of their trusted healthcare providers simply vanishing. Contracts containing non-competes are most often offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. This leaves healthcare practitioners, particularly those right out of school, with no option but to accept the restrictive terms. Restrictive covenants are anti-patient, anti-worker, and bad for the future of medical innovation and treatment in Pennsylvania. Now that hospital consolidation has reshaped the marketplace, it is more important than ever that lawmakers step in to protect workers and consumers. You can learn more about this very fixable problem in Pennsylvania law in this bipartisan 2021 op-ed on the issue. On behalf of those working in health care, we ask you to join us by supporting our legislation to nullify these unproductive and unfair practices. |
Introduced as HB1633