Put People First! PA
Website: putpeoplefirstpa.org
National network (Nonviolent Medicaid Army): nonviolentmedicaidarmy.org
Upcoming events listeners can plug into:
Saturday School of Struggle: “You Can’t Think Your Way Out of Poverty (But Here’s What You CAN Do)” — Sat, July 11, 1–2:30 pm ET, on Zoom. Hosted by the Nonviolent Medicaid Army. As the economic crisis deepens, how do we help our communities come together for support, survival, and strategy instead of falling for scams and false fixes? Register · Facebook event
Put People First! PA Statewide Call — Wed, July 15, 7–8 pm ET, on Zoom. Held every third Wednesday, this call is open to members, mobilizers, and anyone curious about the Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign. Share stories of struggle and find out how to get involved. Join via Zoom (or dial 646-558-8656, Meeting ID: 548 395 7623) · PPF-PA on Facebook
Jamie and Robin welcome questions and are happy to connect, so don’t hesitate to reach out. I will connect you…otherwise, just show up and see if their organization peaks your interest! They are wonderful people and have a unique organizational setup you might find welcoming.
In this episode, I sat down with Jamie Blair and Robin Stephens, two leaders from Put People First! PA (PPF-PA) — a statewide, member-led organization fighting for healthcare as a human right. We covered how they found the movement, the collapse of Delaware County’s hospital system, the fight to restore dental care, and what winning could actually look like. Here’s the conversation for those who’d rather read than watch.
Two paths into the same fight. Jamie, from Lansdowne, came to PPF-PA over a decade ago after a family healthcare crisis, drawn by a community where “you didn’t need to have all the correct ideas” or the solutions — just a willingness to fight. Robin found the group after retiring, following a trip to Washington and a rally in Harrisburg, and was struck by the loving, welcoming mix of people from every walk of life. At 67, she calls joining “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.”
What “member-led and staff-free” really means. Unlike most advocacy groups that run top-down with paid staff and experts, PPF-PA is built by everyday members who pay dues — anywhere from $2 to $20 a month — to do the work themselves. Campaign decisions are made by consensus, starting in regional healthcare rights committees and moving through the whole organization. As Jamie put it, they’re not relying on professionals; they’re ordinary people who came to the work because something about it spoke to them.
How Crozer was dismantled. Jamie and Robin walked through the timeline: in 2016, for-profit Prospect Medical Holdings bought the then-nonprofit Crozer system and began extracting profits and closing facilities piece by piece — Springfield around 2020, Delaware County Memorial in 2022–23, and finally Taylor and Crozer-Chester in May 2025 after Prospect declared bankruptcy. They described the private-equity playbook in plain terms: Prospect sold the land out from under the hospitals and made them rent it back, pulled hundreds of millions out to pay shareholders, saddled the system with debt, and — Robin noted — reportedly paid three CEOs $10 million each right before the bankruptcy filing. In Pennsylvania, no law currently prohibits any of this.
The human cost. Through their community “base building,” Jamie and Robin hear the stories directly: a woman out of medication who couldn’t find a doctor to take her insurance; a Chester heart-attack survivor wondering whether she’d survive the drive to the next hospital; patients now facing a 40-minute car ride to Riddle, a $150 Uber, or three buses and a train to Philadelphia. Riddle itself is beyond capacity — beds in hallways, overwhelmed staff. And this isn’t unique to Delco: Robin pointed to closures across Norristown and warning signs at Pottstown and Phoenixville. Meanwhile, the shuttered Crozer-Chester ER was reportedly used for police dog training just months after it was saving lives.
The Crozer 8. Both Jamie and Robin were among the eight people arrested on September 8, 2025, in a peaceful sit-in at a still-open building in the Crozer complex — singing, sharing stories, careful not to block any patients. After years of exhausting every other channel and getting no solutions from elected officials, they chose nonviolent civil disobedience, answering to “a higher law.” They were charged with third-degree misdemeanors. In the lead-up, community members of all ages — including what Jamie affectionately called the “edgy grandmas” — painted a 20-by-30-foot “Take Back Our Hospitals” banner, hung where it was visible from I-95.
Politically independent, on purpose. PPF-PA doesn’t align with either party, holding all power holders accountable. Jamie and Robin described friendly meetings with county council, the Governor’s staff, and local officials who called the closures devastating but delivered nothing — whether from lack of will or lack of power. Their guiding belief: “No one’s coming to save us.” Robin noted Medicaid has been cut under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and the group thinks of itself as building a “people’s party.”
Linking the fights. Robin explained why she connects hospital closures to immigration and ICE: healthcare is a human right for everyone, regardless of documentation. She pushed back on the idea that immigrants are to blame for lost care, and condemned the cruelty of detention centers where people are denied medication and children are held. “If you have a body, you deserve healthcare.”
“We need our teeth.” The conversation turned to PA’s 2011 elimination of the adult dental benefit in Medicaid — cut under a Republican governor, but following budget-saving guidance from the Obama administration, another example of balancing budgets “on the poorest backs.” Today Medicaid readily covers extractions but rarely crowns or root canals, and dentures only once in a lifetime. At massive free clinics like Mission of Mercy, thousands line up overnight; at one, all twelve denture sets were gone by 8:30 a.m. the first morning. They shared the story of Dawn, who said she used to love to smile but no longer does, because her teeth were all extracted rather than saved.
Crowd the Capitol. In June, PPF-PA brought 50–60 people to Harrisburg — over half visiting for the first time — to deliver 200+ healthcare stories to more than 60 legislators, hold visits with both Democrats and Republicans, and share testimony at a press conference. The two dental bills (Senate and House) remain in committee, tied up in budget negotiations. The cost to restore the benefit is under $20 million — a “drop in the bucket,” especially next to the $43 million the state is set to spend on data center tax breaks, and the state’s $11 billion “rainy day fund” that Robin says sits unused while “it’s pouring.”
What winning looks like. The vision is community-controlled public hospitals. Jamie described how the demand to use eminent domain to take Crozer back from Wall Street profiteers — originally raised by Crozer nurses at a county council meeting — resonated instantly once people understood it meant reclaiming the hospital for the community. They’re skeptical of the “micro-hospital” trend (like ChristianaCare’s 10–12 bed facilities replacing Crozer-Chester’s 400+ beds) and of a proposed rebuild that would be 90% outpatient — a model they argue prioritizes profit over the reality of patients’ lives.
How to get involved. PPF-PA welcomes newcomers. They host a statewide call on the third Wednesday of every month (7–8 p.m. on Zoom), and the Nonviolent Medicaid Army holds a monthly “Saturday School of Struggle.” Anyone can share their healthcare story through #MedicaidMondays on social media. As Robin put it: “Movements start with the telling of untold stories” — and people deserve to feel valued and heard. Find events and details on their Facebook page or by joining the listserv.
(2) Notes:
There are (3) Delaware County Council seats on the ballot in 2027 … if you are interested in running or know someone who should be, please reach out to me at nick@delcorising.com.
If there is someone you would like me to interview for the podcast, also email me at nick@delcorising.com.
