{"id":92690,"date":"2026-01-21T17:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/92690\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T17:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:02:13","slug":"bresnahan-touts-rural-health-funding-at-roundtable-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/92690\/","title":{"rendered":"Bresnahan touts rural health funding at roundtable with Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan touted the impact the Rural Health Transformation Fund may have in his district during a roundtable discussion<\/a> last week with President Donald Trump, administration officials and fellow Republican lawmakers on rural health care.<\/p>\n

The $50 billion initiative<\/a> will deliver funding to states over a five-year period \u2014 including $193 million in year-one funding for Pennsylvania \u2014 to bolster rural health care, improve access to care and strengthen clinical workforces, among other goals. It was included in Trump\u2019s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act savaged by critics, including the American Medical Association<\/a>, over its substantial Medicaid cuts and reductions in federal health care spending.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro announced late last month<\/a> that Pennsylvania was awarded $193 million through the new federal program for the first year of its five-year Rural Health Transformation Plan, or RHTP, \u201cto foster innovation and improve access to essential health services in rural communities that will be most impacted by the federal spending cuts to Pennsylvania\u2019s Medicaid program.\u201d The state\u2019s RHTP initiatives focus on technology and infrastructure; workforce development; maternal and behavioral health services, respectively; aging and access; and EMS and transportation \u201cto modernize rural EMS infrastructure\u201d for improved efficiency and sustainability, per a late December news release.<\/p>\n

Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp., referenced the funding during brief remarks near the end of Friday\u2019s roundtable<\/a>. The event at the White House featured the president and several prominent officials in his administration, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re looking at Pennsylvania, we\u2019re going to receive over $193 million \u2014 in five years it will be over $1 billion for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania \u2014 and when you think about northeastern Pennsylvania, clinics and \u2026 rural hospitals are the backbones of our community,\u201d Bresnahan said, addressing Trump. \u201cSo making a targeted investment that is not just going to Band-Aid over poor operational procedures, it\u2019s going to actually transform rural health care, that\u2019s what we are so excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bresnahan also mentioned rural Pike County, part of the 8th Congressional District, identifying it as the \u201clargest growing county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where there\u2019s not a hospital.\u201d The first-term GOP congressman said money delivered through the Rural Health Transformation Fund \u201cwill be so imperative,\u201d noting the \u201cunprecedented investment is going to be incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oz and Bresnahan also touted the Rural Health Transformation Program in early December, when the former visited Scranton and joined the latter for a tour of the Wright Center for Community Health and a subsequent roundtable discussion at Geisinger Community Medical Center in the city\u2019s Hill Section.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp., speaks with Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz at the Geisinger Community Medical Center Professional Building in Scranton Friday, December 5, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n

After that visit, Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti \u2014 who launched her congressional campaign last year with a goal of unseating Bresnahan in this year\u2019s midterm elections \u2014 issued a statement blasting him over his support for Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. She equated it to a vote \u201cfor the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, ripping away care from tens of thousands of our neighbors and putting hospitals at risk of closure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis cruel attempt to tout patchwork funding that represents only a fraction of the deep cuts he made is like an arsonist calling the fire department and expecting to be called a hero,\u201d Cognetti said in the statement.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization KFF reported in August<\/a> that the $50 billion in new funding delivered through the Rural Health Transformation Program \u201ccould offset a little over a third (37%) of the estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas ($137 billion over ten years) based on KFF analysis of CBO\u2019s (the Congressional Budget Office\u2019s) estimates, or about 5% of the total estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending ($911 billion over ten years).\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent statement, the National Republican Congressional Committee credited Bresnahan for voting \u201cto deliver more than $193 million to protect rural health care in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat vote means hospitals stay open, care stays local, and families get the services they need without leaving their communities,\u201d NRCC spokesman Reilly Richardson said.<\/p>\n

Also participating in Friday\u2019s White House roundtable was Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents New York\u2019s 17th Congressional District. Both he and Bresnahan are likely to face stiff competition this year as Democrats try to wrest majority control of the House of Representatives from the GOP for the final two years of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report\u2019s House Race Ratings<\/a>, which assess the competitiveness of all 435 House races, listed Lawler\u2019s race as a toss up and Bresnahan\u2019s as leaning Republican.<\/p>\n

Races that lean one way or another are competitive, but with one party or the other having an advantage. Toss up races are the most competitive, where either party has a good chance of winning.<\/p>\n

In addition to Cognetti, self-described \u201cpro-life Democrat\u201d Francis McHale of Scranton seeks the Democratic nomination in the May primary for a chance to challenge Bresnahan in November. The 8th District includes all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan touted the impact the Rural Health Transformation Fund may have in his district during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1057,201,182,803,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-92690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-health","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}