NORTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA — Freshman congressman Rob Bresnahan (PA-08) joined three fellow Republicans in breaking ranks and voting for a Democrat-led discharge petition, seeking to prevent premium health care tax credits from expiring at the end of the year. 

“Despite our months-long call for action, leadership on both sides of the aisle failed to work together to advance any bipartisan compromise, leaving this as the only way to protect the 28,000 people in my district from higher costs,” said Bresnahan. 

“Families in NEPA cannot afford to have the rug pulled out from under them,” he said. “Doing nothing was not an option, and although this is not a bill I ever intended to support, it is the only option remaining. I urge my colleagues to set politics aside, put people first, and come together around a bipartisan deal.”

Health care has emerged as a significant political issue for the 2026 elections, following the Republican cuts to health care funding included in the Big Beautiful Bill. Bresnahan and other Republican members of Congress in competitive districts have been targeted with messaging taking them to task for voting in favor of that bill. 

The campaign of Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor who has emerged as a potential Democratic challenger for Bresnahan’s seat, called the vote a desperate attempt to plaster over a harmful voting record. 

“Rob Bresnahan unleashed a health care crisis on Northeastern Pennsylvania by voting for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, stripping funding from our rural hospitals and failing to take meaningful action in time to prevent health care costs from skyrocketing for Northeastern Pennsylvanians next month,” said Cognetti. 

“Worse yet, Bresnahan has stock traded off of his votes to gut health care—profiting off of the pain that he is inflicting on our community,” she said. “In his very short time in office, Congressman Bresnahan has broken our trust time and time again and no eleventh hour effort to paper over his record of raising costs and reducing access to care can change the fact that he has sold us out for his own benefit.”

Bresnahan additionally signed on to a discharge petition to ban congressional stock trading, saying that “This will give members and Americans alike the framework needed to offer transparency and accountability in Congress.”

Discharge petitions allow 218 members of Congress, regardless of party, to bring legislation to the floor for a vote. Neither piece of legislation has so far been brought to a vote.