highly controversial, Dent voted along with the other Republican members of the House for a budget bill that would have abolished government-run Medicare. It proposed to make senior citizens purchase individual private health insurance using vouchers that would have covered only a part of their costs. The Congressional Budget Office found that privatizing Medicare under this plan would significantly increase the out-of-pocket costs to seniors; by 2030, the out-of-pocket share for standard medical expenses paid by a typical 65-year-old would have risen to 68% under the Republican plan, as opposed to 25% under the then existing Medicare system. The CBO found that the Republican bill would also have increased the budget deficit for at least a decade. Dent voted against the 2007 Re-authorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Dent consistently opposed the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. However he broke with his party and voted against one of the Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare in 2017. As a Republican who represented a district with Democratic leanings, he occasionally crossed party lines on legislation. On the issue of abortion and reproductive health care, Dent is a pro-choice Republican. In 2018, Planned Parenthood, which supports legal access to abortion and birth control, gave Dent a 41% lifetime score for voting with their positions and the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee, which opposes legal abortion, gave him a 50% rating in the same year. He co-sponsored legislation to fund embryonic stem-cell research and was one of the Republicans who broke with their party to support the use of embryos in research. Dent supported same-sex marriage. He cosponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would have banned employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and he voted to allow foreign same-sex partners to receive green cards. The Human Rights Campaign, which supports same-sex marriage and LGBT rights, gave him a 68% for their legislative scorecard. In December 2010, Dent was one of fifteen Republican House members to vote in favor of repealing the United States military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on openly gay service members. Citizenship and immigration In April 2010, Dent introduced a resolution urging the U.S. State Department to issue a Certificate of Loss of Nationality to Anwar al-Awlaki. He said al-Awlaki "preaches a culture of hate" and had been a functioning member of al-Qaeda "since before 9/11", and had effectively renounced his U.S. citizenship by engaging in