Bresnahan touts rural health funding at roundtable with Trump

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

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

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Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp., referenced the funding during brief remarks near the end of Friday’s roundtable. 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.

“When you’re looking at Pennsylvania, we’re going to receive over $193 million — in five years it will be over $1 billion for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — and when you think about northeastern Pennsylvania, clinics and … rural hospitals are the backbones of our community,” Bresnahan said, addressing Trump. “So making a targeted investment that is not just going to Band-Aid over poor operational procedures, it’s going to actually transform rural health care, that’s what we are so excited about.”

Bresnahan also mentioned rural Pike County, part of the 8th Congressional District, identifying it as the “largest growing county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where there’s not a hospital.” The first-term GOP congressman said money delivered through the Rural Health Transformation Fund “will be so imperative,” noting the “unprecedented investment is going to be incredible.”

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’s Hill Section.

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