HARRISBURG, June 11 – Private-equity health care mismanagement is quickly expanding a health care desert in Southeast Pennsylvania and stressing medical systems across Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery counties, said state Rep. Mary Jo Daley, D-Montgomery. “House lawmakers have been sounding the alarm over failed private-equity management for years, and yet we still see executives and shareholders run off with pay days and bonuses after they close a hospital and leave patients to the wind ,” said Daley, who co-chairs the bicameral Women’s Health Caucus in the General Assembly . “What’s more, the widening deserts in Delaware and Chester counties strain remaining systems here in Montgomery County and all over the region, affecting even more patients’ well-being.” The closures have led to dangerously long ambulance rides and overcrowded emergency rooms in the remaining regional hospitals. "At Lankenau Medical Center and across Main Line Health, we take pride in providing compassionate, high-quality care for everyone who comes through our doors,” Lankenau Medical Center President Katie Galbraith said. “However, it wasn't right that patients had to experience increased wait times at our hospital in 2022 when Delaware County Memorial Hospital closed, and it's not right that patients in need of a trauma center from the Chester area now have to travel to Lankenau or elsewhere Read more

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 Read more

HARRISBURG, June 11 – The Pennsylvania House of Representatives this week passed bipartisan legislation to provide greater efficiency and clarity for funding school transportation across the state, announced the bill’s prime sponsors state Reps. Paul Friel and John Schlegel. House Bill 1326 would require that school districts report the number of students transported to public, nonpublic and charter schools, including the total costs for each school, to the state Department of Education. The data would be posted publicly online. The bill would also bring state requirements for mileage reporting into the 21 st century by allowing use of GPS software, which is easier and more accurate than manually tracking mileage, said Friel, D-Chester. “Over the past year, in a bipartisan manner, Representative Schlegel and I have spearheaded a work group with school transportation contractors, statewide associations representing school business, state department officials and school district transportation directors from across the commonwealth with the common goal to modernize Pennsylvania’s school transportation laws,” Friel added. “There is a lot of work to be done to bring our school transportation laws up to date, and this bill is an excellent first step toward that goal. Many thanks to the expert stakeholders for helping craft a truly meaningful piece of legislation that would make schools and education better in Read more

Legislation introduced by state Reps. Liz Hanbidge, Melissa Cerrato and Joe Webster to stabilize rent prices and strengthen protections for residents in manufactured home communities passed the House with bipartisan support today. Read more

HARRISBURG, June 10 – The newly formed House Communications & Technology Committee approved two bills that would strengthen consumer protections for automatically renewing subscriptions in Pennsylvania and sent them to the full House for further consideration, Majority Chair State Rep. Joe Ciresi announced today. The bills would protect Pennsylvanians by creating consumer protection requirements for automatically renewing (negative option) subscription plans and by providing notifications before each automatic renewal, requiring transparency about renewal terms and allowing subscribers to cancel subscription services online, also known as click to cancel. “These bills demonstrate the committee’s continued fulfillment of its mission to empowering the public with clear and accurate communications, ensuring consumers can make informed decisions and companies can’t rely on misleading terms and conditions or making it difficult to cancel a subscription,” said Ciresi, D-Montgomery. “By requiring transparency in companies’ communications about their subscriptions, consumers will save money by being aware of the ‘strings attached’ to certain subscriptions and having adequate time to cancel subscriptions they no longer want prior to automatic renewals.” The following bills were approved: House Bill 129 (Rep. Lisa Borowski) would help inform and empower consumers by requiring pre-renewal reminders and clearly Read more

Members of the PA House and nurses from across the state celebrate the chamber passing legislation (H.B. 1460 sponsored by Rep. Lisa Borowski, D-Delaware) that aims to preserve the public’s access to healthcare by protecting the commonwealth’s healthcare services and facilities from unchecked corporate ownership in the healthcare industry. Read more

“If we can’t come together as a legislature to get this protection in place for the people we represent, the message will be clear to Pennsylvanians: ‘Your government does not value your basic needs,’” Borowski said. “This is a measure that provides a commonsense, straightforward solution to an issue with undeniable impact. Crozer Health is gone, with a healthcare desert in its place, because we didn’t have a law like this on the books.” Read more

FALLS TOWNSHIP, June 9 – State Rep. Jim Prokopiak and state Sen. Steve Santarsiero today celebrated the announcement that Falls Township has been selected as one of the first sites for Amazon Web Services' multi-billion-dollar expansion of high-tech data center campuses across Pennsylvania. Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Amazon plans to invest at least $20 billion to establish cutting-edge cloud computing and artificial intelligence innovation campuses across the Commonwealth—marking the largest private sector investment in Pennsylvania’s history. Falls Township in Bucks County and Salem Township in Luzerne County will be the first two communities to host these state-of-the-art facilities, which will create at least 1,250 high-paying technology jobs, as well as thousands of union construction jobs. Multiple additional Pennsylvania communities are under consideration. The proposed facility will be in the Keystone Trade Center, formerly the site of U.S. Steel. “Amazon’s choice of investing in the former Fairless Works site in Falls Township is an example of what can happen when local and state officials work together to create a business-friendly environment,” Prokopiak said. “I want to thank the governor for being a tireless champion for the people of Bucks County, and Amazon for their investment in the Lower Bucks community. This is the next step in taking a site that Read more

State Rep. Mary Jo Daley hosted an expert roundtable today on the future of transit funding in Pennsylvania, including for SEPTA. The roundtable featured civic and business leaders who called for immediate funding for SEPTA and explained the economic relationship that transit plays in a world-class city and Pennsylvania. “I have voted five times in the last two House legislative sessions to support statewide transit with dedicated funding,” said Daley, D-Montgomery . “Those measures have been ignored in the state Senate, but we’re still fighting to pass funding this session, possibly along with the state budget. “I am a devoted transit rider, and I’ve had some of my most meaningful conversations while on public transportation. I cut my carbon footprint with SEPTA, and I have met so many new people on SEPTA, because SEPTA is about people. Without it, our region and state would grind to a halt.” SEPTA and other transit systems throughout Pennsylvania are grappling with significant budget shortfalls that put essential transit services at risk. “SEPTA service has a tremendous impact on the economy of our region and state,” said SEPTA General Manager Scott A. Sauer . “Without new funding for transit, SEPTA will be forced to move forward with service cuts that would significantly reduce property values, depress job and earnings growth, and result in hundreds of millions Read more