Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine says Democrats made a mistake in ramming the Affordable Care Act through without a single Republican vote seven years ago. The Republican says she doesn’t want her party to do the same thing.
Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine brought a suitcase full of praise for Collins to Portland’s Jetport after the Senate’s early Friday vote on the GOP’s latest effort to repeal former President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
“I told her this last night ‘It’s easy to stand up to your opponents. It’s very hard to stand up to your friends.’ And that’s what Susan Collins did along with Lisa Murkowski and John McCain,” King said. “It was an extraordinary moment and I think clearly Susan was thinking about her constituents and the effect that the bill last night would have had on the people of Maine.”
Collins and fellow Republican Sens. McCain of Arizona and Murkowski of Alaska voted “no” — and their votes killed the legislation.
King, an independent who also voted against the measure, says there are Republicans and Democrats who want to work toward bipartisan health care reform, and that there were strong feelings on Capitol Hill that partisan votes would need to happen before any progress could be made.
Collins is urging both parties to work together through the committee process going forward. She says even though she opposed the Affordable Care Act repeal proposed by Republican leaders in the Senate, she still believes the law needs to be fixed.
She says the recent bills have been put forth have not gone far enough to address the most fundamental problem.
“The Affordable Care Act, plus all of these various replacements that have been proposed, do little or nothing to address the underlying cause of high health care costs,” she says.
Collins says she believes most Mainers support her position, and says she was gratified at the standing ovation she received from people waiting to board airplanes at Bangor International Airport when she arrived from Washington.
“There are some of my constituents and colleagues who are not pleased, but I think most people recognize that these bills, which were written behind closed doors, would result in millions more people being uninsured,” she says.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
