A lot can be done at the state level, and Eileen Hartnett Albillar notes that people don't always realize how much healthcare is shaped by state government.

Pennsylvania controls how Medicaid is administered in the state. The legislature makes decisions about what's covered and who's eligible. State law governs how insurance companies operate here, what prior authorizations they can require, and what protections consumers have. These are not small things.

Here's her starting point: healthcare is not a luxury. It is infrastructure. When people can't access care — because they can't afford it, because their insurance denied it, because they live in an area where providers are scarce — they don't just suffer personally. Their families suffer. Their employers suffer. Their communities suffer. The downstream costs of unaddressed healthcare needs are enormous.

What Albillar will push for:

• Protecting Medicaid: This is a moment where federal cuts are threatening coverage for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. Harrisburg needs to be fighting back, not standing by.

• Expanding access to care in underserved communities and making sure rural and suburban families have options, not just urban centers.

• Addressing the prior authorization nightmare: The process where an insurance company can delay or deny care that a doctor has already said a patient needs. Albillar has seen this up close through her work with families navigating the system. It causes real harm, and the state has the authority to set guardrails.

Albillar is also direct about reproductive healthcare: she is a pro-choice candidate, full stop. She believes reproductive freedom is a fundamental right. She will not vote to restrict access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, and she will fight to protect what Pennsylvanians have now and expand it where possible. This is not a close call for her.