A freshman member of Congress dumped up to $130,000 worth of stock in providers that serve Medicaid beneficiaries in the week before voting for President Donald Trump's tax cut megabill that slashed over $1 trillion from the public health program, NBC News reported on Thursday.
According to the report, Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), who has rapidly become one of the most frequent stock traders on Capitol Hill, "offloaded up to $130,000 worth of stock in Centene, Elevance Health, UnitedHealth and CVS Health on May 15, the periodic transaction reports he filed with the House clerk in June show. Taken together, those four companies oversee roughly half of all Medicaid managed care organizations, according to KFF, a health policy research organization."
Faced with scrutiny, Bresnahan told NBC News that he “never instructed my financial advisors on what to buy, sell, or hold,” and that, “It is no secret that I built a successful career before serving, and I am beholden to no lobbyist or special interest.”
Nonetheless, this comes as debate flares up once again in Congress over legislation that would outright ban members from engaging in individual stock trades while in office.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House from all wings of both parties, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), and Tim Burchett (R-TN), are working to force a vote in the House on the matter. However, Republican leadership has reportedly been wary of the proposal, scared of blowback from other members of Congress who rely on stock trades for side income.
The issue of congressional stock trades has been raging for years. In 2012, Congress passed requirements for members to disclose their trades to the public, to identify possible conflicts of interest and prove they were not illegally trading off non-public information. However, in practice, many members of Congress have simply ignored these rules.