Kazeem applauds bipartisan passage of legislation to protect Pennsylvania’s health care from private equity
Rep. Carol Kazeem June 11, 2025 | 3:57 PM
HARRISBURG, June 11 – State Rep. Carol Kazeem applauded Tuesday’s bipartisan passage (121-82) of the legislation she co-sponsored (H.B.1460) that would protect Pennsylvania’s health care system from private equity firms’ disastrous ownership of hospitals and nursing homes in the commonwealth.
“The abrupt closure of Crozer Health System’s two remaining hospitals has made Delaware County a health care desert, resulting in hundreds of thousands of our residents without access to local medical care and negatively impacting our economy by leaving thousands of people without jobs,” said Kazeem, D-Delaware. “Since there’s been no law on the books to oversee private equity firms purchase of our hospitals and nursing homes, they’ve been allowed to repeatedly gut them and walk away with the profits. That would stop now with the passage of H.B. 1460.”
After a series of service cuts and facility closures – and the extraction of over $457 million through real estate deals – the California-based private equity firm Prospect Medical Holdings abruptly closed Crozer’s two remaining hospitals, Taylor Hospital on April 26 and Crozer Chester Medical Center on May 2. As a result of these two closures, a total of 2,651 employees have been laid off.
To prevent unchecked management of Pennsylvania’s medical care system, Kazeem co-sponsored the Rep. Lisa Borowski bill, H.B. 1460, which would provide the Attorney General’s office greater authority and better tools to review hospital and nursing home mergers, acquisitions, and consolidation when private equity is involved. It would also give the public the opportunity to weigh in on any health care facility sale, merger, acquisition or major financial transaction that may jeopardize patient access and public health.
“This commonsense legislation will protect our health care system and public health by providing the necessary oversight to prevent corporations from eviscerating our hospitals and nursing homes, just to make a bunch of billionaires richer,” Kazeem said. “I am proud to support a bill that will give the public a voice about who’s entrusted with their health care.
“We must stop our health care systems from being destroyed by predatory business practices and ensure that we put people – not profits – first.”
The legislation was first introduced during the 2023-24 legislative session. It passed in the House with bipartisan support, but Senate leadership failed to bring it up.
Currently, there is a companion bill in the Senate, S.B. 322, sponsored by state Sen. Tim Kearney.
For more details, residents should call Kazeem’s district office at 610-876-6420 or by email at RepKazeem@pahouse.net.