Pennsylvania Congressmen Mackenzie, Bresnahan, and Perry Voted for Cuts to Health Care and Food Assistance to Fund Billionaire Tax Breaks

February 23, 2026

PENNSYLVANIA - Last summer, Congressmen Mackenzie, Bresnahan, and Perry voted for the historic cuts to Medicaid and SNAP to pay for bigger tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Now, as Pennsylvanians start to lose care and access to food assistance, experts and advocates across the Commonwealth are ringing the alarm on how these cuts are harming our health care system, our economy, and our communities.

“Medicaid is a lifeline for me - it saved my leg. It helped me afford the critical surgeries, medical equipment, and physical therapy required to stay mobile and do my job as a home health aide,” said Krysten of Scranton. “If I don’t have the care I need, I can’t do my job, which just leads to more people without care. These cuts are devastating for me, the patients I serve, and the hundreds of thousands in our community who rely on Medicaid for coverage. Congressman Bresnahan promised that he would protect Medicaid, then voted for the largest cuts in history to pay for bigger tax breaks to billionaires. He needs to right this wrong by reversing these cuts and fighting for affordable and accessible health care.”

Medicaid provides health coverage to almost 3 million Pennsylvanians, including over 160,000 in PA-07, over 200,000 in PA-08, and more than 180,000 in PA-10. SNAP benefits nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians, including over 110,000 in PA-07, over 140,000 in PA-08, and over 120,000 Pennsylvanians in PA-10. These cuts will rip care away from over 300,000 Pennsylvanians, threaten 60,000 health care jobs, and put hospitals and nursing homes at risk of closure, leaving Pennsylvanians hours away from or without access to critical care. They also threaten the very fate of food assistance in the Commonwealth, where 1 in 8 Pennsylvanians face food insecurity.

ICYMI: Philadelphia Inquirer: SNAP cuts are taking a toll on the thousands of Pennsylvanians losing benefits: ‘I fell into a downward spiral’

• In Pennsylvania, around 144,000 SNAP recipients could see benefits cut this year — an estimated 45,000 in Philadelphia and 12,000 in its collar counties, according to Pennsylvania Department of Human Services estimates.

• Since January, advocates say, they have begun to hear from increasing numbers of people suddenly being removed from the program.

• “The White House is rifling through our pockets for lunch money,” said George Matysik, executive director of the Share Food Program, a major provider of food to hundreds of pantries in the region. The cuts constitute “a rounding error for the federal government but [the money is] a lifeline for working-class families,” he added.

• Gaither, 51, is a former data analyst with an MBA who suffered a disability that caused her to stop working at a Malvern finance company 13 years ago. She now collects Social Security Disability Insurance and lives with her three sons, ages 6, 9, and 18, in Cheltenham.

• Gaither said that in January, her SNAP payment dropped from $400 to $200. “I don’t know if it was a new formula from the government cutting me back, or some other reason,” she said in a phone interview. “No one told me why. It’s not supposed to happen when you have a disability. It’s crazy.”

• “Now, the money I used to pay for electricity and water has to go for food,” she said. “This makes surviving more difficult.”

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Pa.’s federal rural health funding doesn’t compare to projected Medicaid loss

• Over the next five years, nearly $1 billion could be heading to Pennsylvania’s coffers earmarked for rural health investments. The federal dollars are designed to create an opportunity to invest in innovative ideas that typically don’t get dedicated funding.

• The money is meant to ease the impact of deep cuts to Medicaid funding in the coming years under President Donald Trump’s signature legislation, the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

• But, some say it comes at a steep cost to the state.

• Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh put the commonwealth’s loss under Medicaid at $20 billion between 2028 and 2038, which dwarfs the funding the state hopes to get under the Rural Health Transformation Plan.

• Arkoosh’s number is lower than an estimate from experts at the health policy organization, KFF, which projects that the state will lose between $34 billion and $57 billion. KFF also concluded that while the average rural American will see $157 in benefits from this proposal, rural Pennsylvanians will get $78 each.

• One area of reduced spending restricts state-directed payments to hospitals and nursing facilities, a method of payment designed to leverage higher provider payment rates. The center-left group Third Way estimates cuts to hospitals will be $1 billion in the commonwealth, which comes at a time when some rural hospitals are closing their doors.

• “And the really heartbreaking piece of this is that those Medicaid cuts are going to fall disproportionately on our rural hospitals, many of (which), very few of (which) are actually profitable today,” said Arkoosh. “And it is only going to further the economic pressure that these hospitals are facing, and we are certain that a number are likely to close because of these cuts.”

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