Delaware County Legislative Delegation Condemns Prospect Following Announcement to Shut Crozer Health
Delaware County Legislative Delegation April 21, 2025 | 1:13 PM
Submitted by the Delaware County State Legislative Delegation: Senators Tim Kearney, John Kane, Anthony H. Williams, and Amanda Cappelletti along with Representatives Leanne Krueger, Jennifer O’Mara, Gina H. Curry, Lisa Borowski, Heather Boyd, Carol Kazeem, David Delloso, Regina Young, Greg Vitali, and Speaker Joanna McClinton
DELAWARE COUNTY, PA – April 21, 2025 – Today, Prospect Medical Holdings filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, a motion to close Crozer Health and all of the outpatient facilities licensed with the hospital.
The Delaware County Legislative Delegation made the following statement regarding Prospect Medical Holdings’ motion to close the Crozer Health System:
Prospect’s decision to move forward with the closure of the Crozer Health System is a devastating and disgraceful blow to our communities, our healthcare workers, and every patient who has ever relied on our local hospital system. Prospect is willfully closing Crozer Health after state and local officials, regional health systems, and philanthropic partners exhausted their ability and financial resources to salvage the hospital system. Yet again, Prospect decided to put profits over patients by putting Crozer’s assets up for auction.
Despite the recent $20 million lifeline extension by Delaware County and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as well as an additional $20 million granted by The Foundation for Delaware County, there is no more cash or credit that can be tapped to keep Crozer operating. Delaware County legislators, Governor Shapiro’s office, and The Office of the Attorney General have been working night and day for months to stop the hemorrhaging Prospect’s dealings created while finding bridge funding to keep Crozer open under new ownership.
We’ve been hearing for months that the ongoing liabilities, deferred facility needs, and operating deficit that Prospect drove Crozer into were creating significant hardship for the dedicated and passionate staff who have delivered unwavering patient care. Those same issue created a nearly impossible situation for any nearby health system to take on without jeopardizing their own financial and patient health. At a time when the federal government is planning massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and when most hospital systems are already in the red due to below-cost reimbursement from those public payor programs, bailing out Crozer became a problem without a solution.
Crozer has been around since the Civil War, is one of the largest employers in Delaware County, and is a place of healing and hope for so many it serves. We are furious for the thousands of nurses, doctors, and staff who’ve put up with so much abuse for the sake of their patients just for their efforts to come to this, and saddened for all the people in our community who depend on Crozer for their emergency and routine medical needs.
Private equity’s decimation of Crozer is an abomination – the corporate abuse that our hospitals went through should be criminally illegal, and the investors and executives who did this to us should be held accountable. The American healthcare system – by far the most expensive in the world – is fundamentally broken, and Crozer’s saga sadly exemplifies this. Our elected officials and financial and corporate regulators in Washington, D.C. and every state capitol must reign in the chaos before there is nowhere left to go for help. As Crozer demonstrates, privatization and for-profit systems are the problem, not the solution. We need bold action for the public interest.