Report: Bresnahan sold stock in Medicaid providers prior to voting for cuts
He just cannot seem to stop.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-08) apparently is at it again, making several stock transactions while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But this time, a report from NBC News says that the NEPA representative sold $130,000 worth of stock in four companies that oversee approximately 50 percent of all Medicaid managed care organizations just a week prior to his vote to slash funding for Medicaid.
The 35-year-old first-termer unloaded shares of Centene, Elevance Health, UnitedHealth and CVS Health on May 14-15. Since the start of the calendar year, Bresnahan has made 636 trades in all, according to Capitol Trades, with nearly a sixth of them being sale of healthcare stocks.
Just one week later, President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which slashed funding for Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion to help pay for tax cuts, came to a final vote. Bresnahan sided with eight other Pennsylvania Republicans in favor of the bill that became law during the summer. Only Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-01) voted against the bill among Pennsylvania’s GOP delegation.
Bresnahan continues to take the stance that in his advisory or managed account, he does not instruct his financial advisor on buying, selling or holding securities. Advisory Accounts or Managed Accounts are generally used by clients who pay a fee for ongoing active management instead of a commission for each trade. The advisor or their team has discretion to trade in and out of securities/mutual funds without having to ask in advance.
Prior to his selling of the four companies’ shares, Bresnahan introduced legislation to ban congressional stock trading (H.R. 3182) and announced he was moving his holdings into a blind trust.
In a statement to NBC News, Bresnahan said that the blind trust process, generally, is “not suited for the realities of today,” and he called for allowing members who hold simple 401(k)-style individual investments to transition those assets into exchange-traded funds or mutual funds.
“My goal is simple: real transparency, real accountability, and rules that actually make sense.”
To date, his bill has received no co-sponsors.
And noticeably, he has yet to sign on as a cosponsor for the “Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust in Congress Act,” which would require a member of Congress, as well as any spouse or dependent child of a member, to place specified investments into a qualified blind trust (i.e., an arrangement in which certain financial holdings are placed in someone else’s control to avoid a possible conflict of interest) until 180 days after the end of their tenure as a Member of Congress.
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to challenge Bresnahan for the 8th Congressional District seat, called the congressman “corrupt” and said that he is “cashing in” on the suffering of northeast Pennsylvanians.
“Northeastern Pennsylvanians work hard and are tired of corrupt politicians who cheat the system and let us down,” said Cognetti in a statement. “Congressman Bresnahan promised to ban stock trading in Congress, and he swore he’d protect our health care. He broke both those promises by trading up to $130K worth of Medicaid provider stocks right before he voted for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, a vote that hurt so many families in our community. This is the kind of corruption I took on when I first ran for mayor as an independent, and it’s the kind of corruption that I’ll fight to root out when I get to Congress. We deserve better.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also did not mince words.
“MAGA extremists like Rob Bresnahan cashed in after voting for the largest cut to Medicaid in American history,” he said in a social media post. “We need to ban congressional stock trading and vote this corrupt hypocrite out of office!”
Fitzpatrick vowed Wednesday to pressure House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and GOP leaders to advance a bill banning congressional stock trading in the coming weeks, not content to settle for a mere hearing on the topic.
“A bill will come to the floor,” he said at a press conference outside the House Administration Committee hearing room.
Fitzpatrick also warned that members’ individual stock performance will be discussed in hearings on any stock trading bill.
“Part of the fact finding is what members have done in terms of trading, sometimes on a daily basis.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has already targeted PA-08 as a potential pickup, was quick to offer their thoughts.
“Rob Bresnahan dumped up to six-figures worth of stock in companies that oversee roughly half of all Medicaid enrollees in the entire country,” said spokesperson Eli Cousin. “Then he turned around and voted for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history. It’s cruel, morally-bankrupt, and just plain wrong. Every new revelation further cements Bresnahan’s image as the poster-child of Washington corruption.”
