He Met With the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He Voted for the Bill It Condemned.

Healthcare / Transparency Source: Facebook Post CONTRADICTION

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Why this matters in NY-23

Medical research that produces a working treatment is one of the few things almost everyone supports, and cystic fibrosis is the textbook success story: a once-fatal childhood disease now managed, for most patients, by a daily pill. Langworthy’s June 26 post celebrates that story and the federal NIH research behind it. The research claim is true. What the post leaves out is that the patient organization in his own photo, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, spent 2025 publicly opposing two things his side did: an NIH policy that the Foundation said would stall CF research, and the Medicaid cuts in the bill he voted for, which the Foundation said would cut off lifesaving treatment for nearly 40% of people with CF. He voted for that bill twice.

Statement

Source: Facebook post, June 26, 2026 (captured ~13 hours after posting)

“Our important investments in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research drove breakthroughs that are changing lives for people living with cystic fibrosis. I met with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to discuss how continued investment in research fuels innovation and lifesaving treatments for families across the nation.”

What the post gets right

This should be said first and plainly, because it is true: federal NIH research did help drive the cystic fibrosis breakthroughs. The 1989 discovery of the CFTR gene came from federally funded and CF Foundation–supported science, and decades of NIH-backed basic research underpinned the modulator therapies that followed. Supporting NIH research is a defensible thing to celebrate.

Two clarifications keep the credit accurate:

  • The treatments predate his service, and the Foundation paid for much of the development. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation pioneered “venture philanthropy,” investing $40 million in Aurora Biosciences (now Vertex) in 2000 and more than $500 million in research overall. The result, Trikafta, was approved by the FDA in October 2019 and called by the Foundation “the single greatest therapeutic advancement in the history of CF.” Langworthy was sworn into Congress in January 2023. The “our investments” in the post is the collective national “our,” not anything he authored.
  • On NIH funding specifically, his party did not cut it. When the Trump administration’s FY2026 budget proposed cutting NIH by roughly 40% (from about $48 billion to about $27.5 billion) and collapsing its 27 institutes into eight, House Republican appropriators rejected that request. The House-passed FY2026 Labor-HHS bill (H.R. 5371, September 2025) held NIH at roughly its current level (about $48.7 billion), and funded all 27 of its institutes. So “continued investment in NIH” is not where the contradiction lies.

The contradiction is on the line that actually delivers those treatments to families: coverage.

The Foundation in the photo opposed the bill he voted for

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation does not only fund research. In 2025 it repeatedly warned Congress about the reconciliation bill, in its own press releases:

May 13, 2025 — “Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Urges Congress to Reject Harmful and Reckless Cuts to Medicaid.”

“The CF Foundation expresses grave concern and strong opposition to the proposed cuts to Medicaid considered by Congress, which could cut off access to lifesaving therapies, care, and other resources for the nearly 40% of people with cystic fibrosis who rely on Medicaid for some or all of their health care coverage.”

The Foundation added that gaps in Medicaid coverage “even for as little as one month” may put people with CF “at risk of declining health, including increased lung exacerbations, irreversible lung damage, and hospitalizations.”

July 1, 2025 — “CF Foundation Condemns Senate-Passed Reconciliation Bill.”

“We strongly condemn the Senate for passing a reconciliation package that threatens to dismantle comprehensive health coverage for many people with cystic fibrosis and their families.”

The Foundation described the bill as “$1 trillion in health care cuts … [making] devastating changes to Medicaid and the marketplace.”

That bill is H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The record of Langworthy’s votes on it, from the House Clerk:

VoteDateQuestionLangworthy
Roll Call 145May 22, 2025H.R. 1, On PassageYea
Roll Call 190July 3, 2025H.R. 1, On Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendment (218–214)Aye

The sequence is exact: the Foundation urged Congress to reject the Medicaid cuts on May 13; Langworthy voted Yea on House passage on May 22. The Foundation condemned the Senate-passed bill on July 1; Langworthy voted Aye to concur and send it to the President on July 3 — two days after the condemnation was already public.

In plain language: The post celebrates lifesaving CF treatments reaching families. For nearly 40% of CF patients, the thing that pays for those treatments is Medicaid. Langworthy voted for the bill that the CF Foundation said would cut that coverage off.

A meeting is not an endorsement. Advocacy groups meet with their representatives constantly, because a sitting member is their pathway to federal action. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation sitting down with Langworthy says nothing about whether it approves of his record, and it should not be read that way; patient and disease organizations meet with members precisely to press their case, often when they disagree. The Foundation’s own statements show that is what happened here — it spent 2025 publicly urging Congress, including the votes he cast, to protect CF patients’ coverage. The accountability is not on the Foundation for meeting its representative. It is on how Langworthy presents that meeting: using the photo to claim alignment with “lifesaving treatments for families” that his Medicaid votes work against.

The research-disruption backdrop he did not oppose

The post’s other theme is “continued investment in research.” In the same period, the CF Foundation also objected to an executive-branch action that did the opposite.

February 10, 2025 — after NIH announced it would cap reimbursement for research “indirect costs” (lab space, equipment, infrastructure) at 15%, the CF Foundation responded:

“The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is deeply concerned by the devastating impact that severely and suddenly limiting indirect costs will have on the CF research community and the United States biomedical research system.”

The cap was blocked by a federal court in April 2025 and the injunction was upheld by the First Circuit on January 5, 2026. Separately, NIH disrupted roughly 16,000 grant applications worth about $1.5 billion in the months after January 20, 2025. No public statement from Langworthy in defense of NIH research funding during that disruption has been located. The “continued investment” he praises was, in 2025, under pressure from the administration he supports — and his party’s appropriators, not his individual advocacy, are what restored the NIH number.

Assessment

Verdict: CONTRADICTION

The post’s factual core is accurate: NIH research helped drive the cystic fibrosis breakthroughs, and his party protected NIH’s appropriation from a proposed 40% cut. But the post’s posture — standing with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to champion “lifesaving treatments for families” — conflicts with his documented action. The Foundation he met with publicly opposed the Medicaid cuts in H.R. 1, warning they would cut off coverage for nearly 40% of CF patients; Langworthy voted for that bill twice (Roll Call 145 and Roll Call 190), the second time two days after the Foundation’s condemnation. A treatment that exists but is not covered does not reach the family. That gap, between celebrating the treatment and voting against the coverage that delivers it, is the contradiction.

Questions This Raises

  1. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation said H.R. 1 would cut off Medicaid for nearly 40% of people with CF. Did that warning come up in the meeting, and how does Langworthy reconcile it with his two votes for the bill?
  2. For the CF patients in NY-23 who rely on Medicaid for Trikafta and specialized care, what specifically protects their coverage under the law he voted for?
  3. When NIH capped indirect costs and disrupted ~16,000 grant applications in 2025 — actions the CF Foundation called “devastating” to research — why no public statement in defense of the “continued investment in research” the post now celebrates?

Sources

Note: This entry documents publicly available information from official disclosures, the congressional record, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s own published statements. Readers may draw their own conclusions.

Last updated: June 27, 2026