Brian Fitzpatrick criticizes fellow Republicans for not focusing on affordability: ‘Nothing else matters.’
Republicans can knock the ACA if they have a better alternative. They never have, Bucks County's Fitzpatrick said.
U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick upbraided fellow Republicans for not sufficiently addressing how Americans are being economically squeezed.
The Bucks County Republican, who will face a potentially tough reelection battle next year, criticized his party’s leaders for not focusing enough on affordability in an interview with CNN last week.
“Affordability is the issue,” Fitzpatrick told CNN’s Manu Raju, adding that if people can’t make ends meet, “nothing else matters... I hear it every day back home.”
Asked whether the GOP has focused enough on affordability since winning control of the White House and Congress, Fitzpatrick said, “I don’t think they have.” He added that “everybody’s got to have an answer to rising costs across the board.”
Fitzpatrick pointed out that affordability was “what people voted on,” a galvanizing issue that helped propel President Donald Trump to victory in 2024.
But, Fitzpatrick indicated, the help Republicans promised never materialized as costs for everything from housing to healthcare continue to rise.
And the affordability issue is now powering Democratic campaigns. Fitzpatrick credited it as the driving force behind Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral election.
Raju noted that Trump has called the affordability message a “Democrat scam,” language which Fitzpatrick rejected. Fitzpatrick said he believes Republicans are exhibiting “a lack of priorities” in some of the bills they’re forwarding, which include condemning “the horrors of socialism,” and other non-kitchen table issues.
“Affordability should be the name of the game,” he said. “Every bill we bring to the floor should be focused on lowering the cost of living for people who need it most.”
One of the most pressing cost issues at the moment is the upcoming spike in insurance premiums for millions of Americans as expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies expire at the end of the year.
“If you want to criticize [the ACA], that’s OK,” Fitzpatrick told Raju, “as long as you have a better alternative, [and] they have never offered a better alternative.”
Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican, has promised to introduce a bipartisan bill to extend ACA subsidies. Fighting over the subsidies was a central reason the government was shut down for more than 40 days.
“I say if you don’t have a better plan, then get on board with ours,” Fitzpatrick told CNN. He said ACA subsidies should be extended two years, with income caps.
Fitzpatrick noted that he voted against repealing the ACA during his freshman term in 2017 because he believed the GOP replacement was “insufficient.”
He added, “And here we are. You know what? Eight years later and they [Republicans] still have not ... put together ... a plan that’s going to work for everyday Americans.”