Sen. Collins Says ‘No’ to Graham-Cassidy Healthcare Bill Effectively Killing Effort

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has come out in opposition to the current GOP health care bill making her the third Republican to do so and killing any hope for a fix this year.

Collins released a written statement saying that the Graham-Cassidy Healthcare Bill “is a moving target.”

“Today, we find out that there is now a fourth version of the Graham-Cassidy proposal, which is as deeply flawed as the previous iterations,” she said. “The fact that a new version of this bill was released the very week we are supposed to vote compounds the problem.”

The rushed approach comes as the fiscal year ends Saturday after which special budgetary rules will end that allow certain measures to pass with a simple majority. Republicans could only afford to lose two votes under the rules and Collins makes three.

John McCain (R-AZ) said he would vote against the bill, not because of content, but the process. He said he couldn’t support anything that didn’t go through regular order, long debate and garner some bi-partisan support.

Rand Paul (R-KY) said the bill didn’t go far enough to repeal Obamacare and he could not vote for it while block grants to the states were still included.

The time spent on Graham-Cassidy also used up valuable time that could have been used to push a part of tax reform through under the 50-vote rule. Now, any changes to the tax code will need 60 votes which will require some Democrats to vote yes.