U.S. Senator Susan Collins issued the following statement after her vote against passage of the Senate Reconciliation Bill: 

“I strongly support extending the tax relief for families and small businesses. My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.  

“The Medicaid program has been an important health care safety net for nearly 60 years that has helped people in difficult financial circumstances, including people with disabilities, children, seniors, and low-income families. Approximately 400,000 Mainers – nearly a third of the state's population – depend on this program. Certainly, there are improvements that should be made to the Medicaid system. For example, I support work requirements for able-bodied adults who are not raising young children, who are not caregivers, or attending school. However, a dramatic reduction in future Medicaid funding, an estimated $5.9 billion in Maine over the next 10 years, could threaten not only Mainers’ access to health care, but also the very existence of several of our state’s rural hospitals.

“This bill has additional problems. The tax credits that energy entrepreneurs have relied on should have been gradually phased out so as not to waste the work that has already been put into these innovative new projects and prevent them from being completed. The bill should have also retained incentives for Maine families who choose to install heat pumps and residential solar panels. 

“I am pleased that the bill contains a special fund that I proposed to provide some assistance to our rural hospitals, but it is not sufficient to offset the other changes in the Medicaid system. While I continue to support the tax relief I voted for in 2017, I could not support these Medicaid changes and other issues.”