November 3, 2025

Lehigh Valley, PENNSYLVANIA - As the federal shutdown enters its second month, Pennsylvanians are calling on their representatives Congressmen Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, and Scott Perry to stop playing politics, permanently extend the tax credits that make health care affordable, and reopen the government.

As many as 150,000 Pennsylvanians could lose health coverage next year if Congress fails to make the health care tax credits permanent, which ensure insurance is affordable for hundreds of thousands of residents. Monthly costs for Pennie enrollees are expected to increase by 82% on average and some households will see their net premiums more than double.

Read constituents’ calls to action:

York Dispatch Editorial Board: Republican leaders: Stop holding Pennsylvania — and the nation — hostage

• For ordinary people, politics isn’t a game. But that’s what it feels like right now in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., where Republican leaders are treating budgets like bargaining chips while our communities pay the price.

• Starting Nov. 1, the SNAP food assistance program — which helps 42 million low-income Americans, including many here in Pennsylvania — could grind to a halt. So could the WIC program that provides healthy food for mothers, infants, and young children. Millions of people will face the cruelest kind of uncertainty: not knowing where their next meal is coming from.

• It’s time for our leaders, especially the Republican leaders who control the levers of power, to remember who they work for.

Morning Call: Letters: Mackenzie should stand up for his constituents

• The government has shut down after Republicans in Congress refused to permanently extend health care tax credits that make Affordable Care Act health insurance plans more affordable for working families. Now Rep. Mackenzie’s constituents are suffering the consequences.

• I am a home care worker who relies on the ACA. I pay $450/month, the top end of what I can afford on my income. If premiums go up, I’ll be forced to downgrade my plan to something I can afford monthly — which brings higher deductibles that I won’t be able to pay.

• Mackenzie claims addressing this health care crisis is important, but we are nearly a month into this government shutdown and costs keep rising. If Mackenzie fails to act, thousands of his constituents like me will lose access to affordable health care. As I look ahead to open enrollment — when my new rates will be an estimated 82% higher — I hope Mackenzie will remember whom he works for and stand up for the Lehigh Valley community.

Hazleton Standard-Speaker: Opinion: ACA cuts hurt Bresnahan’s constituents

• What Rob and his friends don’t realize is that they are hurting their constituents the most with allowing the subsidies to run out. I know this because I rely on the subsidies to purchase affordable health insurance through the Pennie marketplace here in Pennsylvania because I do not get health insurance through my job.

• As a caregiver to my father, who is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a retired police officer — he both served his country and community and could stay in his home because I could take care of him after losing his leg, I am not an illegal alien, far leftist, paid activist or an abuser of the system. I am someone who works very hard to take care of my Dad.

• I guess tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires are more important than the hard-working people of Northeastern Pennsylvania. I guess a guy that is more worried about the stock market and helicopters just doesn’t get it.

Citizens’ Voice: Letter to the editor: Protecting Americans’ health care is no game

• In a recent press release supporting U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said the Democrats are playing “political games” by not voting to cut Medicaid and ACA benefits from millions of people.

• Is it a game to want affordable healthcare? Is it a game to want to be able to afford food and medicine? And not have to choose between the two? The answer is no.  It is not a game.

• Stop playing the blame game and put the people of Pennsylvania and our country first.  That is what you were sent to Congress to do. Represent us all, not your wallet.

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