Healthcare access
in Delaware County.

Since 2018, Delaware County has lost significant hospital capacity. Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill closed in 2022. Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital shut down in 2025 when Crozer Health's operator, Prospect Medical Holdings, entered bankruptcy, 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 where Rep. Scanlon worked for 15 years before Congress, where her husband remains senior counsel, and her top campaign contributor, states on its own website that it represents health insurers. More on that relationship is on our Conflict of Interest page.

More than 1,700 people 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. Per Delco Rising, her office has not acknowledged the campaign.

Rep. Scanlon has not co-sponsored the bill. You can verify the current co-sponsor list on Congress.gov.

Rep. Scanlon's former employer and top campaign contributor, the law firm Ballard Spahr, represents healthcare-industry clients. Whether that relationship has any bearing on her healthcare positions is a question of disclosure, not a conclusion. The facts are laid out on our Money page so you can weigh them yourself.