(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Rob Bresnahan speaks at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Newly minted U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan swore he wouldn’t support gutting government benefits such as Medicaid that residents of his northeastern Pennsylvania district rely on.
Then the first-term Republican voted for a bill that could do just that.
Bresnahan and two other Pennsylvania Republicans won in November by some of the smallest margins in all of Congress, prevailing in a critical battleground state that not only helped decide the presidency but also aided the GOP in taking control of the U.S. House.
Bresnahan, fellow newcomer Ryan Mackenzie and seven-term Rep. Scott Perry now find themselves navigating the delicate politics of a divided electorate once again, this time during the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term as he makes economy-altering decisions.
Those include imposing tariffs on raw materials such as steel and aluminum, firing federal workers, shedding federal office space and, most recently, pushing for votes on budget legislation that appear likely to require major cuts to Medicaid and other programs people in Pennsylvania might care about.
There is no time to hide: Mackenzie has already drawn a Democratic challenger in 2026, and rumors are circulating about challengers to Bresnahan, who is trying to find footing that balances loyalty to the Republican president with his constituents’ needs.
Before last Tuesday night’s budget vote, Bresnahan had said he would vote against any bill “that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on.”
“These benefits are promises that were made to the people of (northeastern Pennsylvania) and where I come from, people keep their word,” Bresnahan said in a statement.
Bresnahan then voted for a GOP blueprint that sets the stage for $2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and would, Democrats and many analysts say, inevitably require steep cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that covers medical care and long-term nursing care for some 72 million people nationwide.
He played down the vote, saying it was a “procedural” step to start budget negotiations and did not contradict his earlier position.
“I will fight to protect working-class families in Northeastern Pennsylvania and stand with President Trump in opposing gutting Medicaid,” Bresnahan said in a statement. “My position on this has not and will not change.”
Trump has insisted he will not touch the safety net programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and will only cut what he calls waste and fraud. Republican lawmakers insist there will be no direct cuts to health care through Medicaid.
Nursing home operators are watching closely, including in the neighboring districts represented by Mackenzie and Bresnahan on Pennsylvania’s eastern border, where communities are still trying to recover from the disappearance of the coal and steel industries that built them.
There, and in Perry’s south-central Pennsylvania district, many fear a devastating funding cut after years of scraping by, and they doubt there is much undiscovered waste and fraud in the program still to be unearthed.
“It’s definitely a very hot topic for us right now, 100%,” said Mary Kay McMahon, president and CEO of the nonprofit Fellowship Community, which operates a nursing home outside Allentown in Mackenzie’s district.
McMahon estimated that Medicaid covers about 35% to 40% of the cost to care for a skilled nursing patient, and a Medicaid cut might force Fellowship Community to sell the service or eliminate beds.
“There’s very few options left, to be honest, and I don’t know where these people are going to go for that care,” McMahon said. “That’s what concerns me.”
Jim Brogna, a vice president for Allied Services Integrated Health Systems, a nonprofit that runs three nursing homes in Bresnahan’s district, said representatives met with Bresnahan’s staff to press him not to support Medicaid cuts.
Any reduction in the program would mean cuts to services, Brogna said.
Nursing home operators have pushed Pennsylvania for Medicaid rate increases to help manage their costs, and Brogna said the prospect of less federal funding is “heartbreaking” at a time when nursing homes there are closing their doors or eliminating beds.
Bresnahan did not respond to an interview request from The Associated Press. Nor did he answer a constituent email from Chris Chesek, who was motivated by the layoff of five employees at Steamtown National Historic Site to organize his first-ever rally.
Last Saturday’s “Save Steamtown” rally drew dozens to downtown Scranton and, for Chesek, it is personal: Steamtown, which memorializes Scranton’s rise as a railroad and coal powerhouse in the 1900s, is like a second home where the rangers have fed his 10-year-old son’s fascination with steam engines.
“Steamtown is a vital part of Scranton’s economy, it brings people from all over the country and world,” Chesek said.
The Times-Tribune of Scranton’s editorial page echoed that sentiment, decrying Trump’s “heavy-handed, indiscriminate slashing of federal spending.”
Bresnahan’s district is also home to a heavy concentration of federal employees, potentially a sensitive spot as Trump readies for large-scale layoffs of federal workers — 80% of whom live outside the Washington area.
Many federal employees and contractors in Bresnahan’s district work at military-related installations, including at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, where they forge 155 mm howitzer shells that help Ukraine repel the Russian invasion, and Tobyhanna Army Depot, one of the region’s largest employers.
“There’s a lot of people on pins and needles right now,” said Bill Cockerill, a labor liaison for Scranton’s local AFL-CIO council. “So far, nothing’s been hit, but you just don’t know when the shoe is going to drop.”
Rumors are circulating about who might challenge Bresnahan. The developer ran a family construction company before defeating six-term Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright, who said he is considering running again in 2026’s election.
Mackenzie, a former state lawmaker who beat three-term Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, drew an opponent barely 48 hours after voting for the House budget bill when the two-term Northampton County executive, Democrat Lamont McClure, announced his candidacy.
In a statement, Mackenzie called the budget vote a “starting point” that makes no specific reference to Medicaid and said that if the program emerges in negotiations, he would “fight to end the waste, fraud and abuse in the system, and protect benefits for those who need them.”
In his Thursday news conference at Northampton County’s courthouse, McClure didn’t hesitate to link that legislation to Mackenzie.
Mackenzie’s first instinct in going to Washington was to “gut” health care for thousands in the district, McClure said, “at a time when people are most concerned about the cost of health care and the access to health care.”
