Senator Collins has been desperately trying to mislead Mainers about her dismal record on health care – but the facts speak for themselves.
Collins’ record is indisputable: she’s no champion for affordable health care. She has voted repeatedly to undermine or repeal the Affordable Care Act, endangering health care for tens of thousands of Mainers. Between her efforts to repeal the law entirely to her key vote that paved the way for a lawsuit to strike it down, Senator Collins has been a top lieutenant in her party’s never-ending war on the ACA.
Here’s a sampling of Senator Collins’ real record of putting Mainers’ health care at risk:
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Senator Collins has voted a dozen times to fully repeal or undermine the ACA, and co-sponsored two bills to repeal the entire health care law without a replacement.
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Senator Collins wrote a bill to repeal and replace the ACA that she claimed would protect people with pre-existing conditions — in reality, it contained major loopholes health care policy experts and advocates said would have undermined protections and left people with pre-existing conditions "especially vulnerable."
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After signing on to an amicus brief that argued the ACA should be overturned if the individual mandate was repealed, she cast a pivotal vote for the GOP tax bill that repealed the mandate and opened the door to the lawsuit that threatens to overturn the ACA.
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The Trump administration is arguing before the Supreme Court that Collins “knowingly voted to destroy” the ACA with her tax bill vote.
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When asked about her vote for the GOP tax bill in the context of the threat it posed to the ACA, Senator Collins said she did not regret that vote “at all.”
“No matter how many times she tries to distract Mainers from her record, the facts are clear: Senator Collins is no champion for Mainers’ health care,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra. “Mainers deserve a senator who will defend our health care – and they know Senator Collins can’t be trusted to do that. In November, they’ll send Sara Gideon to the Senate to protect and expand access to affordable health care.”
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