Crozer Health and Hahnemann Hospital closed within six years of each other and experts call it “a cautionary tale in US academic medicine.”

MINNEAPOLIS — On Tuesday, a bill is expected to be introduced in the legislature that proposes raising the Hennepin County sales tax by 1%. The money would be a lifeline for the cash-strapped Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC). 

The large, safety-net hospital in Minneapolis is facing a huge deficit, but the proposal is getting mixed reviews from lawmakers. Hospital leaders say without any help from the state, it could start to close by June.

People in Pennsylvania know that situation all too well when five major hospitals closed within six years.

“We really believed that it couldn’t be possible,” said Peggy Monroe, who worked at Crozer-Chester Medical Center for 38 years, which was shuttered in 2025.

The hospital, and three more, are part of a system that’s now entirely shut down after going bankrupt. Monroe was part of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals union that rallied to keep it open. 

Nearly 3,000 people lost their jobs. 

“You’re really beating up those people on two fronts,” said Monroe. “You take away their healthcare, but you also take away their ability to have employment.”

Today, she says there are just 400 beds for 700,000 people living in Delaware County, about 20 miles outside of Philadelphia. Some of whom would have to go to nearby Riddle Hospital, pushing the number of its emergency room patients from 116 to 156 every day.

“You don’t have the space for it, you don’t have the staff for it, you’re not equipped for it, so patients experience a much greater wait,” said Riddle Hospital President James Paradise.

Paradise says hospitals have to invest in more out-patient services that are more favorably reimbursed, like performing mammograms and MRIs at clinics instead of hospitals. He also says hospitals have to become even more efficient. 

“Instead of being in an actual room, a hallway bed,” Paradise explained. “We’ve switched, as well, to patients in recliners.”

What’s worse, in Philadelphia, its oldest and largest safety-net hospital also closed back in 2019. Like Crozer, Hahnemann Hospital was privately owned and went bankrupt.

“Financially, it’s a very tough business,” said Paradise. “I don’t know what the rescue is going to be in terms of the healthcare dynamics and the economics behind it.”

On the other hand, HCMC is nearly entirely funded by insurance reimbursements. But the federal government is reshaping the Medicaid program in 2027 and, as the cost of uncompensated care skyrockets, the hospital is expecting $1.7 billion in losses in the next decade. 

That makes the HCMC board chair, Jeffrey Lunde, all the more hopeful lawmakers pass the county sales tax. 

“We’ve got leadership on both sides, we’ve got people who care deeply for the hospital statewide, and that’s a good thing,” said Lunde. “It has to be there and it cannot close.”

The bill is expected to get its first hearing Thursday in the House Taxes Committee.