By Blue Views staff
Chester County doesn’t need to imagine what happens when a hospital closes. We lived it.
On December 31, 2021, Tower Health closed Jennersville Hospital in southern Chester County. A month later, on January 31, 2022, it closed Brandywine Hospital in Caln Township. The two were less than 20 miles apart.[i] Brandywine had 64 inpatient psychiatric beds, the only inpatient behavioral health unit in the county, and most of the patients who used them were our neighbors. After it closed, they had to leave the county for care.[ii] Families in western Chester County were told to go to Chester County Hospital or Paoli Hospital for emergencies, each nearly 20 minutes away.[iii]
Some of that has been rebuilt. ChristianaCare bought the Jennersville property and reopened it as its West Grove Campus.[iv] But the lesson stuck: hospitals that serve working families run on thin margins, and when the money stops adding up, they close. In 2025, Delaware County learned the same lesson when Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital shut their doors.[v]
That is the context for a decision Congress made last year, and one voters can weigh in on this November.
What changed in Washington
In July 2025, the House passed H.R. 1, the budget law that included major changes to Medicaid. The final vote was 218 to 214. Every Democrat voted no, including our congresswoman, Chrissy Houlahan.
The law matters to hospitals because Medicaid is a large part of how they get paid. Medicaid covers, on average, 82% of the cost of hospital care, according to the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. Every Medicaid patient is a partial loss before any cut.[viii] About 3 million Pennsylvanians, close to a quarter of the state, are covered by Medicaid.[ix] Health care advocates have identified 47 Pennsylvania hospitals with moderate to significant risk factors for closure because of the cuts.[x]
Many of the law’s Medicaid funding cuts don’t take effect until after this election.[xi] Voters still have a chance to choose representatives who will work to reverse them before they hit.
It’s not just Medicaid
Many Chester County families buy their own coverage: small business owners, the self-employed, early retirees. They are feeling a second blow. Congress let the enhanced premium tax credits for Pennie, the state’s insurance marketplace, expire at the end of 2025. Chester County Pennie premiums rose an average of 46% for 2026.[xii] Statewide, more than 200,000 people have dropped Pennie coverage since last year’s enrollment period, many citing cost.[xiii]
People who lose coverage still get sick. They show up in emergency rooms, often sicker and later, and hospitals absorb the cost. Fewer insured patients and lower Medicaid payments together are how a struggling hospital becomes a closed one.
What’s on the ballot
On November 3, Chester County voters choose who represents us in Congress, where the fate of these cuts and the Pennie tax credits will be decided. We also choose a governor and state legislators, who decide how Pennsylvania administers Medicaid and absorbs whatever Washington sends, or doesn’t send, our way.
We know what a hospital closure costs a community in ambulance minutes and miles driven to visit a loved one. Vote for candidates who will protect the hospitals we still have. Josh Shapiro has a proven record of minimizing the worst impacts of the Medicaid cuts coming from the Republicans in Washington. Why would we want to trade him in for Stacy Garrity, a self-described “strong ally of President Trump” [xvii] – a candidate more interested in scoring points with him than helping Pennsylvanians. A candidate whose idea of “protecting healthcare and welfare benefits for vulnerable Americans” is cutting Medicaid.
[i] https://www.phc4.org/news-and-press-releases/current-events-hospital-closures/
[ii] https://whyy.org/articles/closing-brandywine-hospital-creating-a-chester-county-health-care-desert/
[iii] https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/brandywine-hospital-closed-chester-county-pa-tower-health
[iv] https://www.phc4.org/news-and-press-releases/current-events-hospital-closures/
[v] https://chambers.com/content/item/7345
[viii] https://www.inquirer.com/health/philadelphia-hospitals-closing-medicaid-funding-cuts-20250519.html
[ix] https://www.monvalleyindependent.com/2025/07/14/medicaid-cuts-could-devastate-access-to-care-in-rural-pa/
[x] https://www.pasnap.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/EPTCs-Flyer_12.18.25.pdf
[xi] https://www.monvalleyindependent.com/2025/07/14/medicaid-cuts-could-devastate-access-to-care-in-rural-pa/
[xii] https://www.inquirer.com/health/pennie-health-insurance-costs-hike-20251016.html
[xiii] https://northeasttimes.com/?p=163780
[xiv] https://www.phc4.org/news-and-press-releases/current-events-hospital-closures/
[xv] https://www.monvalleyindependent.com/2025/07/14/medicaid-cuts-could-devastate-access-to-care-in-rural-pa/
[xvi] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/3/us-house-of-representatives-votes-on-trumps-one-big-beautiful
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