The Fall of Crozer Health
A Special Limited Podcast Series
Crozer Health, a major hospital system in southeast Pennsylvania, closed in early May 2025.
In over 40 interviews with Crozer physicians, nurses, paramedics, medical assistants, and county and state legislators, we captured the stories, emotions, and impact – in real time – of a hospital system in Delaware County, PA as its doors were closing.
Crozer Health was Delaware County’s largest hospital system. Its fall was financially engineered over nearly a decade – a predictable page out of the private equity playbook. This tragedy will echo for years.
The five-part series dropped every week during May 2025, and we will continue to post regular updates throughout the first year of this new reality for Delco. Stay tuned.
All photos are of Crozer facilities in Delaware County, PA, taken by Crozer employees. Thank you to the healthcare workers who captured these photos and shared them with us.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODES
The Fall of Crozer Health, Part 1: “Today is Not Good”
PART 1
The Crozer Chester Medical Center in PA is closing as we speak, but the fall of Delaware County’s largest hospital system has been building for years. In interviews with the doctors, nurses, paramedics, and legislators who kept Delaware County healthy, Wendy and Matt go behind the headlines and speak to the people who are living through these changes right now.
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The Fall of Crozer Health, Part 2: “It Was Surreal”
PART 2
The story of private equity in healthcare is often told in numbers, spreadsheets and transcripts from bankruptcy court. But in Part 2 of our series, we hear from the people in the trenches and on the front lines of Crozer Health, a collapsed hospital system in Pennsylvania, who are living out the awful consequences of decisions made, not by clinicians in Delaware County, but by executives in California and a judge in Texas.
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The Fall of Crozer Health, Part 3: “Betrayal. Plain and Simple.”
PART 3
When health systems are underwater, you might want to look up upstream to see what the trouble is. When you get there, sometimes you’ll find out why those systems are falling into the water. . . and sometimes you’ll find out who’s pushing them. In this episode, we’re going upstream to look at how we got to the point where a health system that served more than a hundred thousand people per year suddenly closed its doors, and what went wrong along the way.
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The Fall of Crozer Health, Part 4: “If You Think It’s Bad Now”
PART 4
Crozer was not an island, and what happened to them affects all the nearby health systems. In the fourth installment of this special series, we break down how one community’s loss becomes a neighboring community’s nightmare, lay out the ‘private equity playbook’, and explore how the financialization of medicine is everywhere – in every state – and how it affects us all.
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The Fall of Crozer Health, Part 5: “A Symptom of a Broken System”
PART 5
The fall of Crozer Health is a story steeped in grief, greed, and the needs for dignity and for protection. In the final installment of our special series, we unpack the rollercoaster of emotions caused by the health systems’ failures, and speak to the lawmakers in Delaware County trying to build the legislative foundation needed to keep this from happening again.
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READY TO VENT, RANT,
OR ASK A QUESTION?
Did one of these episodes get you in the gut? Were you, like one listener, “horrified”, or like another who was “incandescent with rage”? Then, you’re our people, and we want to HEAR IT! Record right here, right now.
Voices Heard in the Series and Additional Resources
In addition to the dozens of Crozer physicians, nurses, paramedics, and medical assistants we spoke to, voices heard in this series include:
Brian Alexander, Author, The Hospital
Brendan Ballou, Author, Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America
Lisa Borowski, House Representative, 168th District, Delaware County, PA
Erin Fuse Brown, JD, MPH, Professor, Health Services, Policy & Practice, Market Power, Brown University School of Public Health
Mary Bugbee, Healthcare Director, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
Megan Greenwell, Author, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream
Michelle Henry, State Inspector General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Paul Hewes, Delaware County Historical Society
Tim Kearney, State Senator, 26th District, PA
Michael Kaplan, Senior Investigative Reporter, CBS News
Patrick Keenan, Director of Consumer Protections and Policy, Pennsylvania Health Access Network
Leanne Krueger, House Representative 161st District, Delaware County, PA, Crozer-Chester Medical Center Updates
Ryan Mascio, MD, President, Delaware County Medical Society
Kristin Motley, Health Commissioner, Chester, PA
Eileen O’Grady, Director of Programs, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
Stefan Roots, Mayor of Chester, PA
Elaine Paul Schaefer, Council Member, Delaware County Council
Frances Sheehan, President, Foundation for Delaware County
Monica Taylor, Chair, Delaware County Council
Maureen “Moe” Tkacik, Senior Fellow, American Economic Liberties Project
Lora Werner, Director, Delaware County Public Health Department
Richard Womack, Vice Chair, Delaware County Council
Get Involved
In Pennsylvania
“An Act providing for approval from the Department of Health and the Office of Attorney General before certain transactions involving health care entities within this Commonwealth.”
“An Act providing for approval from the Department of Health and the Office of Attorney General before certain transactions involving health care entities within this Commonwealth.”
In Your State
Health Legislation
Here is a helpful guide to finding current health legislation in your state or territory.
Find your State Legislator
At a National Level
This bill establishes a series of restrictions and requirements regarding for-profit corporations that own health care entities.
Specifically, the bill requires for-profit corporations that are controlled by private equity funds to obtain a license from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) before purchasing or investing in a health care entity. Additionally, for-profit corporations that own or are affiliated with health care entities must report certain ownership and financial information to HHS, such as the corporation’s debts, assets, and political spending. The bill establishes civil penalties for violations.
Proposed in the 118th Congress (2023-24) by Senator Edward Markey (MA).
HOSTS
Wendy Dean, MD
Dr. Wendy Dean practiced emergency medicine and psychiatry, spent a decade as a US Army civilian deeply involved in medical innovation, and was an executive in a half-billion-dollar nonprofit. When the challenges of getting high quality healthcare nearly cost her physician husband his life, Dr. Dean left that work to change healthcare. She is now the leading voice for reframing health worker distress to include moral injury. She cofounded and leads Moral Injury of Healthcare, a 501c3 nonprofit, is the author of, If I Betray These Words, and also cohosts the Moral Matters and WCC podcasts.
Matt Ramsey, MD
Dr. Matthew L. Ramsey is an orthopaedic surgeon subspecializing in shoulder and elbow surgery. Dr. Ramsey has held multiple leadership positions during his career as a board member, chief of service, Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and in subspecialty organizations and journals. He is committed to two ideals in reconstructive surgery of the shoulder and elbow: physician excellence and a holistic approach to patient care. He is passionate about preserving physician autonomy and physician leadership in healthcare.
PODCAST PRODUCER
Jill Ruby
Jill Ruby has developed and produced radio, podcasts, and television series and specials for multiple national organizations and networks including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Reach Out and Read, George Washington University, PBS, A&E, Nickelodeon, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Court TV, OLN, HGTV, and Discovery Health Channel. She holds a BA Hons. from the University of Toronto and a MA in Broadcast Journalism from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.
Jill is a member of New York Women in Film & Television, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. She is a judge for The Webby Awards, The Signal Awards, The International Women in Podcasting Awards, and has been a judge for the Daytime Emmys.
She has won several awards for podcasting, including two Webby Awards, four Webby-Anthem Awards, and five Signal Awards. Additionally, her work was selected as a 2024 Webby Honoree for Best Live Podcast and shortlisted for a 2024 International Women’s Podcast Award.
