Augusta, Maine – In case you missed it, new reporting is highlighting Susan Collins' "decades-long record of voting to cut Medicaid and Medicare.” The report comes on the anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare being singed into law and on the heels of Collins' “key” “pivotal vote” to advance Republicans’ dangerous budget bill that makes deep cuts to Medicaid and rip away health care from more than 61,000 Mainers.

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Maine Beacon: Susan Collins’ decades-long record of voting to cut Medicaid and Medicare
By Channa Steinmetz
July 30, 2025

  • Sen. Susan Collins […] has a long record of supporting deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, raising the retirement age, and blocking efforts to lower drug prices.

  • For nearly three decades, Sen. Collins has backed federal budget plans that would cut Medicare and Medicaid, programs that hundreds of thousands of Mainers depend on to access health care.

  • Earlier this month, Collins voted to advance Pres. Donald Trump’s budget bill, which is set to slash Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion and strip coverage from 10 million people. While the bill doesn’t explicitly cut Medicare, it is expected to increase the deficit, which the Center for Medicare Advocacy said could trigger up to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare.

  • Her record shows that she voted for GOP budgets that proposed more than $430 billion in Medicare cuts in 2015 and 2017. These same budgets included a $500 billion and $1 trillion cut to Medicaid as well.

  • She also supported a 2011 proposal that would have slashed growth to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as a 1997 spending plan that aimed to raise the retirement age.

  • She’s voted over a dozen times to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act, which has saved older Mainers more than $87 million by closing Medicare’s coverage gap, and opposed efforts to rein in prescription drug costs, including a $35 insulin cap.

  • In Maine, approximately 392,000 residents are covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program through MaineCare, and approximately 378,000 Mainers rely on Medicare.

  • Today marks the 60th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing Medicare and Medicaid into law, calling on the nation “never to turn away from helplessness.”
     

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