Collins: Trump’s Threat Would Not Affect My Vote Against GOP O’Care Repeal Bill

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, finishes a television news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, finishes a television news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. (AP Pho... Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, finishes a television news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
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Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on Sunday said President Donald Trump’s threat to end health care subsidies that affect both the poorest Americans and Congress would not have changed her vote against Senate Republicans’ bill to repeal Obamacare.

“It would not affect my vote on health care,” Collins said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Trump on Saturday threatened to do away with cost sharing reduction payments “if a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly.” Those Obamacare subsidies allow insurers to offset health-care costs for low-income Americans.

He also threatened to end “BAILOUTS for Members of Congress.”

Collins said that the subsidies “are not an insurance company bailout but rather help people who are very low-income afford their out-of-pocket costs toward their deductibles and their copays.”

“That’s what we need to remember,” she said. “So it really would be detrimental to some of the most vulnerable citizens if those payments were cut off.”

Collins also remarked on her warm reception when she arrived back home in Maine after the nail-biter Senate vote early Friday morning that scuttled Republicans’ latest attempt to repeal Obamacare.

“I got off the plane and there was a large group of outbound passengers, none of whom I happened to know, and spontaneously some of them started applauding, and then virtually all of them started to applaud,” she said.

Collins said “it was just amazing.”

“I’ve never had that happen in the 20 years that I’ve been privileged to serve in the Senate, so it was very encouraging and affirming, especially arriving back home after a very difficult time,” she said. “It really was so extraordinary, heartwarming and affirming.”

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Notable Replies

  1. You can bet the other Senators on the list of potential defectors will hear about the airport applause . It will embolden more No votes.

  2. Trump also doesn’t seem to understand that stopping the subsidies isn’t “letting Obamacare die.” It would be taking action to kill it. And he would get blamed by the voters.

  3. Trump has no idea what do do when he is not in control–which is always.

  4. Scaramucci’s fed-up wife filed for divorce while nine months pregnant
    On Monday, while Anthony [Scaramucci] was in West Virginia with President Trump for the Boy Scouts Jamboree, Deidre gave birth to the couple’s baby boy James. As of Friday evening, a full four days after delivery, her 53-year-old husband had yet to meet his newborn son, though an associate close to Anthony said he visited the child late that night. He visited his Manhasset, L.I., homestead Saturday.

  5. That phrase applies to SOOO many things (especially if the word “seem” is omitted).

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