FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 1, 2025
CONTACT: Erica Freeman, freemane@pennpolicy.org
The Senate Vote Is a Historic Failure
Senate Passes Bill that Takes Health Care from 17 Million, Adds $4 Trillion to Nat’l Debt
Today the Senate passed what, if also passed by the House, will go down as one of the most reviled pieces of legislation in American history.
No other legislation in our history has ever redistributed as much income from those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution to those at the top.
No other in our history has ever stripped away health care and food assistance from tens of millions of people in our country and hundreds of thousands in our state.
The unfairness of this legislation is almost palpable. Right now, almost everyone in America receives government subsidies for the essential good of health care. Some do so through the tax deduction for employer-paid health care. Some through subsidies on the health care exchanges. Some through Medicare. And some through Medicaid.
This legislation shamefully takes government-supported health care away from 17 million Americans and more than 500,000 Pennsylvanians.
And it does this to give tax giveaways that go overwhelmingly to the richest Americans, while adding over $4 trillion to the national debt.
Now members of the House of Representatives need to decide whether to go along with this travesty.
At each step of the process, Pennsylvania representatives Rob Bresnahan and Brian Fitzpatrick have said that the legislation “does not cut” Medicaid and that they were “voting to move the process along” with the hope that the final product would be better.
If the Senate bill is the final product, Bresnahan and Fitzpatrick cannot continue to hide behind those claims. This legislation is far worse than the House version. And both versions of the reconciliation bill deeply cut Medicaid and SNAP benefits for tens of thousands of their constituents.
This week, they both have to decide whether they stand with the billionaires of this country or their own constituents. Their decision will determine whether people will live or die for lack of health care.
We hope they make the right decision and say no to this historically disgraceful legislation.