1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

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. I know there is usually a lot of noise and rhetoric coming out of DC, but what they did this morning has a very real impact on Pennsylvania. Let me explain: This bill shifts $1 billion in food assistance costs from the federal government onto our state budget. We cannot make up those dollars and as a result, at least 140,000 Pennsylvanians could lose access to assistance they need to put food on the table. Over 300,000 Pennsylvanians could lose Medicaid coverage – meaning that after a decade of our hard work to reduce the number of uninsured Pennsylvanians by nearly 50%, we will go backwards and 10% of our Medicaid population will lose coverage and become uninsured. This will raise health care costs for all Pennsylvanians – including those with private insurance. We have 25 rural hospitals operating on a deficit, struggling to survive and relying significantly on Medicaid – this bill would put more strain on them and threaten the closure of hospitals in our rural communities. This is a bad bill and it will have negative and lasting impacts on our Commonwealth. Any lawmaker in DC 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.