The household
and the firm.

Before her 2018 election, Rep. Scanlon spent 15 years at Ballard Spahr, a Philadelphia-based national law firm, as its national pro bono counsel. Her husband, Mark S. Stewart, served as chair of Ballard Spahr for 12 years, stepping down at the end of 2023. He remains at the firm today as senior counsel.

Ballard Spahr's health care practice page states that the firm represents clients across the industry, including health insurance companies, self-funded and administered medical plans, and third-party payers.

The Medicare for All Act would establish a single national health insurance program administered by the federal government, replacing most of the private health insurance business those clients are in.

Rep. Scanlon's most recent annual financial disclosure, covering calendar year 2025 and filed with the Clerk of the House on May 7, 2026, reports three ongoing ties between her household and the firm: her husband's salary from Ballard Spahr LLP, a Ballard Spahr pension, and a Ballard 401(k) account whose largest holding is valued at more than $1,000,000. House rules require members to name the source of a spouse's salary but not the amount.

Ballard Spahr is also her top campaign contributor. Its employees gave $96,495 in the 2023–24 cycle, per OpenSecrets tallies of FEC filings. The full picture is on the Follow the Money page.

Ballard Spahr's health care practice page describes representing health insurance companies in general terms. Federal lobbying disclosures name a specific one: Independence Blue Cross, which, with its Keystone Health Plan East subsidiary, holds 26% of Pennsylvania's ACA marketplace. Independence Blue Cross and Keystone sell marketplace plans only in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties. Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia make up PA-05; Bucks does not.

For 2026, Independence Blue Cross requested a 16.7% premium increase and Keystone requested 23.5%, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer's review of filings with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Ballard Spahr's current lobbying filings on the Independence Blue Cross account cite Medicare Advantage policy, ACA marketplace stability, and pharmacy benefit manager reform, the same cost drivers cited behind those requests.

Rep. Scanlon has not co-sponsored Medicare for All, which would eliminate the private insurance layer behind those premiums. She has acted against a different part of the health care industry: the Take Back Our Hospitals Act, which she introduced in March 2026, targets private equity hospital operators. Ballard Spahr does not represent private equity hospital operators. It represents health insurers.

More than 1,700 people have signed an ongoing petition asking Rep. Scanlon to co-sponsor Medicare for All. In the current Congress the bill is H.R. 3069, with 114 co-sponsors as of July 2026, including three Pennsylvania Democrats: Reps. Boyle, Deluzio, and Lee. Rep. Scanlon is not among them, and was not a co-sponsor of the prior Congress's H.R. 3421. Her office has not acknowledged the petition campaign.

The stakes of that decision are documented. Peer-reviewed research in The Lancet estimates a single-payer system would prevent about 68,000 deaths nationally every year, and the measured cost of Delaware County's own loss of hospital access, from ambulance response times to ER waits, is laid out on our Healthcare page.

This page documents relationships and money flows found in public records. It does not assert that any vote, co-sponsorship decision, or public position was caused by them. Under House rules, none of the arrangements described here are prohibited, and members are not required to recuse themselves from votes affecting industries their families work in. The facts are presented so constituents can weigh them.