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A wave of local news coverage is torching vulnerable Pennsylvania Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, and Scott Perry for casting the decisive votes to “take healthcare away from their own communities” by backing the largest cuts to Medicaid in history.
Any single one the PA Republicans could have voted to buck their party and stopped this disastrous bill. Instead, Fitzpatrick, Mackenzie, Bresnahan, and Perry are now “on early defense” and can “expect the ramifications of the early AM vote on Thursday to be felt until November of next year.”
Read the brutal coverage for yourself:
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Every Pa. Republican voted for Trump’s budget bill, which passed the House by one vote
By Julia Terruso and Sam Morris
May 22, 2025
- For Pennsylvania’s Republican representatives in swing districts, though, the votes immediately become fodder for Democrats who vehemently opposed the bill on the grounds that it could leave thousands of Pennsylvanians without healthcare and food assistance.
- “Republicans just voted for the largest cuts to health care in American history,” said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat representing Philadelphia, and ranking member on the House Budget Committee. “At least 13.7 million will now lose their health care as a result. And why? To pay for tax cuts for billionaires and special interests. This is a betrayal of the middle class.”
- Moments after the votes were cast, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called out U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, (R., Bucks), Ryan Mackenzie, (R., Lehigh), Rob Bresnahan (R., Lackawanna), and Scott Perry (R., York) for their votes.
- All four represent swing districts that’ll be targets in next year’s midterm elections. With such a narrow vote, any one of the four could have tanked the bill, Democrats noted in their pushback.
- “By passing the largest cut to Medicaid in history, Fitzpatrick, Mackenzie, Bresnahan, Perry, and their fellow Republicans are ripping away health care from millions of Americans and levying a de facto hidden tax on working class families,“ DelBene said. ”Their cruel cuts to nutrition assistance will end up taking away food from millions of children at the dinner table and the school cafeteria.”
- Republicans were on early defense Thursday […]
- Mackenzie, who won his Lehigh Valley seat by 1 percentage point, had been largely supportive from the beginning. Perry, a fiscal hawk had pushed for more cuts to Medicaid but ultimately backed it.
- The question marks were self-described moderate Republican members like Fitzpatrick and Bresnahan. Both ultimately celebrated the bill’s passage […]
- According to the CBO analysis of the proposed budget, $900 billion in cuts to federal spending would result in about 7.6 million Americans losing healthcare over 10 years.
- The CBO breakdown found that the 7.6 million would include 1.4 million undocumented immigrants, 4.8 million able-bodied adults and 1.2 million otherwise ineligible recipients.
- An analysis by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, found that in Pennsylvania, 1.2 million Pennsylvanians were at risk of losing healthcare, and 795,000 people in the state could lose their access to food assistance, due to additional changes to how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is administered under the bill.
The Keystone: PA Republicans vote to cut taxes for billionaires, take healthcare away from their own communities
By Sean Kitchen
May 22, 2025
- All nine of Pennsylvania’s congressional Republicans on Thursday voted for President Donald Trump’s budget bill that cuts taxes for the rich and corporations by taking healthcare and food away from Pennsylvanians.
- The delegation’s four most vulnerable members — Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, Scott Perry — voted for the bill, even though it cuts Medicaid by $698 billion and will cause 7.6 million Americans to lose their health care.
- “Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, Scott Perry, and House Republicans have broken their promise to help the people they were elected to serve,” Suzan DelBene, Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said in a statement.
- “Their vote to pass a singularly devastating piece of legislation that will hurt millions of working people, all to pay for hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy is the latest example of their complete abandonment of everyday Americans in favor of billionaires,” DelBene added. “By passing the largest cut to Medicaid in history, Fitzpatrick, Mackenzie, Bresnahan, Perry, and their fellow Republicans are ripping away health care from millions of Americans and levying a de facto hidden tax on working class families.”
- “ If these Medicaid cuts happen, if Republicans really do this, we’re going to expect to see rural hospitals close, senior facilities, nursing homes likely close, and that’ll be worse in the more rural parts of our state,” Congressman Chris Deluzio told The Keystone in an interview prior to Thursday’s vote. “I think my Republican counterparts are hearing the same thing, and they know it. And yet, they’re going down this path and I don’t get it.”
PoliticsPA: Yes, A PA Republican Could Have Blocked the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ It Didn’t Happen
By Steve Ulrich
May 22, 2025
- It came down to a single vote […] And all 10 Pennsylvania GOP members voted yes.
- Expect the ramifications of the early AM vote on Thursday to be felt until November of next year.
- The four Keystone State representatives from swing districts – Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-01), Ryan Mackenzie (R-07), Rob Bresnahan (R-08), and Scott Perry (R-10) – will be asked to defend their vote incessantly over the next 18 months. Their success in doing so to their constituents could decide control of the U.S. House in the 120th Congress. […]
- Democrats were not so kind with their rebuttal.
- “Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, Scott Perry, and House Republicans have broken their promise to help the people they were elected to serve,” said DCCC chair Suzan DelBene in a release.
Bucks County Beacon: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Votes for Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ That Will Cut Medicaid and Food Stamp Spending by Nearly $1 Trillion
By Cyril Mychalejko
May 22, 2025
- Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick could have stopped President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that will slash Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits spending by almost $1 trillion.
- Fitzpatrick’s single vote could have stopped the bill that passed 215-214 Thursday morning in the House.
- Instead, the self-described moderate fell in line with the MAGA leadership of the Republican Party and his single vote sent the budget bill that will take food and health care away from millions of Americans to the Republican-controlled Senate.
- Fitzpatrick voted for a bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cut $698 billion in federal Medicaid spending, which would cause approximately 8.6 million people, if not more, to lose their health care coverage by 2034. These apparently weren’t red lines, unless of course he thinks this is necessary to strengthen “Medicaid solvency.”
Penn Capital-Star: Pa. congressional Republicans unanimous in support of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”
Democrats warn the budget would slash a ‘massive hole’ in Medicaid, send deficit soaring
By Peter Hall
May 22, 2025
- Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said the budget, as it stands, would have a “very real impact” on Pennsylvanians.
- “This morning, every single Republican member of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation voted to cut healthcare and food assistance from hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians and speed up the closure of dozens of rural hospitals across our Commonwealth – all while increasing our national deficit by $2.3 trillion,” Shapiro said in a statement.
- Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would shift $1 billion in food assistance costs to the state, putting benefits for 140,000 people in question. More than 300,000 Pennsylvanians could lose Medicaid benefits, rolling back efforts to reduce the number of uninsured people and increasing the cost of health care for everyone, Shapiro’s statement said.
- And the cuts to Medicaid could hurt 25 rural hospitals across the state that are already financially struggling and rely on the medical assistance program, increasing the likelihood they could close.
- “Any lawmaker in D.C. who thinks the commonwealth can backfill this massive hole they’ve created is wrong – and these cuts will have real life consequences for Pennsylvanians. As this heads to the Senate for a vote, I hope common sense and a concern for the people of Pennsylvania will prevail,” Shapiro said.
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