The budget reconciliation bill President will sign Friday passed without the support of any of the members of Maine's congressional delegation, including Republican Senator Susan Collins. Maine Public's Irwin Gratz spoke with her this Thursday. He asked if there were any parts of the bill she supports.
Sen. Susan Collins: So I support extending tax relief for families and small businesses. I support the doubling of the child tax credit that was approved back in 2017 and the doubling of the standard deduction, which has resulted in more than 90% of taxpayers in Maine no longer itemizing, which makes filing their taxes much easier. So there are some good provisions in the bill, which is why I wish that the bill had been separated into a series of bills, one of which would have dealt with extending Most, but not all, in my view, of the tax reductions that were approved back in 2017.
Irwin Gratz: Of course, in the end, you did vote against the measure as it stood in the Senate. What ultimately turned you against the bill
From the beginning, I was worried about the deep cuts in the Medicaid program. That program has been a healthcare safety net for nearly a third of Maine's population, including low income families, children with disabilities, seniors who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid because their income and I was also concerned about the impact on our rural hospitals and nursing homes so that healthcare infrastructure in our state is going to be harmed by this bill. Some of the impact will be offset by a $50 billion rural provider fund that I came up with and advocated for. Other parts will be delayed in the impact, because the formula for calculating Medicaid won't go fully into effect until two years from now, but we have a lot of rural hospitals that are teetering. They're on the brink, even with the current system, so I'm very concerned about whether they can survive.
You originally proposed a 100 billion for that hospital stabilization fund. I mean, is it safe to say that the 50 billion really will represent only half as much relief, or was there a little wiggle room in there?
Well, there are other changes that were made in the bill, such as the delayed implementation of some of the provider tax provisions, which are part of the Medicaid formula in many states, including Maine and help pull down more federal money. What we really should be doing is increasing the basic reimbursement under Medicaid for services because they're inadequate.
Were you pressured at all in the last few days by either the White House or the majority leader, Senator Thune, to vote yes on this bill?
Well, there's always some pressure, but I had made very clear to both the White House and to my leadership in the Senate that I had a list of concerns about the bill, ranging from the top income tax rate, which I thought should be allowed to expire for those who are very wealthy. That was on my list and obviously not included in the final bill. The provider Relief Fund was also an issue on my list. There were some issues involving eligibility checks. For example, if you have a child with a severe, lifelong disability who sadly, is not going to get better, I don't see the need to make the parent or the healthcare provider certified two times a year, the eligibility for that child, it that strikes me as a cruel and onerous burden to put on a parent who is the caregiver or On a busy health care provider. There were other provisions that applied to the food stamp program known as snap that also concerned me. One of those was that if you read, if you received a payment under the low income Heating Assistance Program that. Counted as income toward your eligibility for food stamps, unless you were a senior citizen or disabled. So if you were a low income, single mom with three kids receiving a LIHEAP payment in the winter to help you keep warm. You're likely to find under this bill that your food stamp allotment went down, and that just struck me as unfair as well. So there were a number of provisions that I discussed early on with both the White House and with my leadership in the Senate, now keep in mind that they were also under pressure from those who wanted deeper cuts in the Medicaid program. So there was pressure on the leadership and the administration on both sides of the equation.
As you know, some people are upset that you didn't vote against bringing the bill to the floor for debate last weekend.
First of all, let me say that the majority leader, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, always has the right to determine which bills come to the floor, except under very few circumstances, and thus, I defer to the right of the majority leader to bring the bill to the floor. But in the end, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, there were sufficient votes to bring the bill to the floor, as was shown by the fact that we did not have to have the vice president come break a tie vote.
Do you think ultimately this bill was going to help or hurt Republicans in general? Perhaps you in particular, in next year's midterms.
That really was not the basis for my vote back in 2003 when President Bush provided a tax cut bill, I provided a provider relief fund way back then. So I have a very long record as the Maine Hospital Association would attest for being concerned about the health of our Rural Health Care Network.
