Healthcare access
in Delaware County.

Delaware County has lost four hospitals since 2022, all owned by the same company. Prospect Medical Holdings, a private equity backed operator from Los Angeles, bought the Crozer-Keystone Health System in July 2016 and promised not to close its hospitals before 2026. It closed all four before that deadline.

Springfield Hospital suspended emergency services on January 14, 2022, and acute care there ended that year; the campus now offers outpatient services only. Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill closed its emergency department and inpatient units in November 2022, after the state Department of Health ordered it to stop accepting patients because it lacked staff. Prospect filed for bankruptcy in January 2025. Taylor Hospital closed April 26, 2025, and Crozer-Chester Medical Center closed May 2, 2025, per Delaware County, ending emergency, trauma, and maternity services that hundreds of thousands of residents relied on.

The result is measurable. Per WHYY's reporting on county EMS data, average ambulance response times rose from about 8 minutes before the closures to 12 minutes after, reaching 28 minutes in some areas. Average transport time from scene to hospital hit 40 minutes in May 2025, roughly four times the 2018 baseline, and ambulance handoff waits at the remaining ERs roughly doubled to about 50 minutes. Trauma patients are now routed out of the county, to Lankenau Medical Center or Penn Presbyterian in Philadelphia.

This is not only a local story. Peer-reviewed research published in The Lancet estimated that a single-payer universal system like Medicare for All would prevent about 68,000 deaths and save about $450 billion nationally every year, largely by covering the tens of millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured.

On March 23, 2026, Rep. Scanlon introduced the Take Back Our Hospitals Act with Sen. Chris Murphy. The bill would deny Medicare funds to hospitals and nursing homes owned by private equity firms. The same day she introduced the Patient Safety and Whistleblower Protections Act, also with Sen. Murphy. She has called Crozer "a cautionary tale." In June 2024 she detailed the damage from Prospect Medical Holdings' ownership of Crozer in submissions to the FTC, DOJ, and HHS. Her own March 2026 statement counts four hospitals closed by Prospect and 2,600 health care professionals laid off.

Her legislation targets private equity hospital operators. She has not co-sponsored Medicare for All, the bill targeting health insurers. Ballard Spahr, the Philadelphia law firm her husband chaired for 12 years and where he remains senior counsel, is a registered federal lobbyist for Independence Blue Cross, the region's leading insurer. Its employees are also her top source of campaign contributions, per OpenSecrets. More on that relationship is on our Under the Umbrella page.

More than 1,800 Delaware County residents have signed an ongoing petition asking Rep. Scanlon to co-sponsor the Medicare for All Act (H.R. 3069 in the current Congress), which would establish a single national health insurance program. Her office has not publicly responded to the petition, per organizers.

Rep. Scanlon has not co-sponsored the bill. The bill would make it unlawful for private insurers to sell coverage that duplicates the public plan. Her husband's law firm, Ballard Spahr, is a registered federal lobbyist for Independence Blue Cross, the region's leading insurer and the business with the most to lose if it passes. Details are on our Under the Umbrella page. You can verify the current co-sponsor list on Congress.gov.

On June 30, 2026, a group of Medicare for All advocates, including senior citizens, disability advocates, and labor representatives, was denied entry to Rep. Scanlon's district office in Chester, according to an account published by organizer Kae on the PA District 5 Medicare for All Substack. The visit was part of a National Nurses United "Day of Action" held at roughly 100 congressional offices nationwide, marking the 1965 passage of Medicare.

The group had contacted the office twice in advance to identify itself and confirm the visit, per the account. On arrival, staff limited entry to two people. When the group offered to remain in the lobby instead, staff said the building and surrounding property were private and asked the group to leave. Building security and local police were called; an officer told participants they were subject to arrest if they did not leave and that photography was not permitted. One participant who uses a walker had made a specific effort to attend. The group left without delivering its planned remarks.

Constituent office visits are a longstanding part of how member offices interact with the people they represent, though the Congressional Research Service notes that individual offices shape their own constituent service operations within House and Senate rules. Scanlon's office has previously held outdoor events on the sidewalks of Yeadon and Chester, per the same account; the office visited on June 30 operates out of a private commercial building, terms participants said were not disclosed to them in advance.

The visit was organized in part around a petition asking Scanlon to co-sponsor Medicare for All. More than 1,800 Delaware County residents had signed it as of the Substack's publication. Scanlon has not co-sponsored the legislation, and has not publicly responded to the petition, per the same account.

Source: Kae, "National Nurses United Invites Advocates to Visit their Congressional Office in Support of Medicare for All," PA District 5 Medicare for All Substack, Aug. 5, 2026 ↗

Here is the plain version. Rep. Scanlon's husband, Mark S. Stewart, chaired Ballard Spahr for 12 years and still works there. The firm pays his salary, his pension, and a 401(k) worth more than $1 million, all disclosed on her House financial disclosure. The lobbying side is on our Under the Umbrella page. Federal lobbying records show Ballard Spahr is also a registered lobbyist for Independence Blue Cross, the insurer that dominates the ACA marketplace in her district.

Independence Blue Cross and its Keystone Health Plan East subsidiary hold 26% of Pennsylvania's ACA marketplace, sold 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 received 15.2%. Keystone requested 23.5% and received 22%, per ACA Signups and the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, the same year Delco lost the hospital capacity documented above.

Ballard Spahr's lobbying filings on the Independence Blue Cross account cite Medicare Advantage, care coordination for veterans, a TRICARE pilot program, and H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Congress's own advisory body, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), estimated in its March 2026 report that the federal government will pay Medicare Advantage insurers nationwide about $76 billion more in 2026 than it would cost to cover the same seniors under traditional Medicare, 14% above what fee-for-service Medicare pays. That $76 billion is a nationwide total, not a number specific to Independence Blue Cross. Medicare Advantage appears in every Ballard Spahr filing for Independence Blue Cross since the firm registered in March 2021.

Rep. Scanlon has acted against a different part of the health care industry, introducing the Take Back Our Hospitals Act to target private equity hospital operators. Her husband's firm is registered to lobby Congress for Independence Blue Cross. Whether any of this has any bearing on her healthcare positions is a question of disclosure, not a conclusion. The full financial picture is on our Money page so you can weigh it yourself.