Killer Campaign Tactic

Americans will die, due to the GOP and Maine's senior senator.

With Trump’s Big Bad Bill, Republicans are bent on making life dramatically worse for America’s most vulnerable citizens and our rural hospitals. First, the House gutted Medicaid. Then the Senate slashed even more. Trump and his buddies intend to carry out “the biggest roll back of health insurance coverage ever,” in order to redistribute money to the rich while decimating federal health care budgets. No surprise, despite Susan Collins being purportedly oh-so-powerful, Maine’s senior senator didn’t wage any real fight in defense of her constituents.

As shown in the chart below, the amount to be hacked from health care and food assistance equals how much people making over half a million bucks will get in tax cuts.

So what does Collins do? In an effort to set up a campaign motif for 2026, she came up with a face-saving plan that would do nothing for people who will lose coverage. Collins introduced an amendment that was initially voted down and rejected in the middle of the night on July 1. She designed this gambit in order to claim – in the future – she tried to save Maine’s rural hospitals but was thwarted by the mean Democrats.

Next, she called Senate Democrats “hypocrites” for not backing her proposed scam.

Her ploy involved technical tomfoolery and wonky reasoning, but also came down to simple math. Looking at the numbers, Collins’ amendment was clearly a nothing-burger, in addition to a political hoax intended to support her quest for a SIXTH term in Washington.

Firstly, it’s no secret that rural hospitals and other medical centers nationwide will be in big trouble if this bill actually becomes law. Heck, even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was told by his state's hospitals the cuts “would be historic in their devastation.” That’s because the BBB cuts so much cash from health care and not just by throwing millions off the Medicaid rolls.

That’s why GOP Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of NC – understanding that 663,000 people in his state would lose coverage – voted against starting the process leading to the Senate vote. Tillis’ move triggered Trump into deciding to back a primary opponent versus Tillis, who then announced he won’t run for reelection and subsequently voted against the bill.

Collins, of course, voted the opposite of Tillis on starting the debate even though America would be a better place for everyone if Collins had followed Tillis’ lead.

Secondly, instead of reversing Trumpian policies that will devastate rural hospitals, Collins’ aforementioned scheme involved budgeting $25 billion for rural health care. Which is a mere one-fortieth of the BBB Medicaid cut. Making the deal even sketchier, that proposed funding wouldn’t be allocated based on need. Instead, that money would be doled out by the Trump administration. Given the Trumpian history of blatantly rewarding allies and punishing the disloyal, you can imagine how well that sort of dispensing of billions would go. Besides, the pittance individual rural hospitals would receive wouldn’t help the many humans slated to lose health coverage via the BBB. The end result: poorly-funded rural hospitals, pressure on every health provider from an influx of patients and fewer payments, and more medical debt, suffering and death for our citizenry.

Thirdly, Collins’ second-try at performative damage control proposed to double the rural hospital slush fund to $50 billion which equals about 5% of the overall $1 trillion cut to Medicaid. Still grossly inadequate, especially compared to the BBB’s reduction in Medicaid and the other cuts. Collins’ proposal, once again, would’ve barely put a dent in rural hospital problems and did nothing to stop millions of people from losing Medicaid. Meaning under her plan, many people would die from a lack of accessible health care.

In Collins’ plan, the money for the hospital fund would have come from a tiny increase in the tax rate for multimillionaires, from 37% to 39.6%. (The increase would only impact single taxpayers with income over $25 million and couples filing jointly earning over $50 million.) Keep in mind that the top marginal tax rate before Reagan started this trickle-down nonsense was 70%. (And Reagan’s efforts in 1981 lowered the rate to 50%.) All that to say: Collins’ tax increase for some multi-millionaires would have been puny. And her true colors become more visible with her eager and steadfast support for the other tax cuts benefiting the rich in the current Senate reconciliation bill.

Sen. Ron Wyden got it right, calling Collins’ budget ploy “a bandaid on an amputation.”

Before passing their version of the BBB, Senate Republican leaders ended up creating a $50 billion fund like Collins wanted. The thing is, rural hospitals and all public health hospitals and clinics will still suffer. They’ll end services and eliminate well-paying jobs, harming businesses that depend on health care workers to buy their goods and services. And 17 million Americans will still lose their health care.

And some will die.

The easier, smarter (and more humane) thing to do would have been not cut Medicaid by $1 trillion dollars in the first place. Or make other dramatic policy changes that will harm patients, their loved ones, nursing homes and hospitals.

In the end, Collins voted against the Senate bill. However, per usual, she didn’t cast any sort of deciding vote, especially not one that ran counter to MAGA’s desires.

(Historically, Collin’s only instance of making a difference by voting against her party was in 2017 when her “no” vote stopped the ACA repeal, although that was before anyone knew John McCain would also vote in opposition. In the years since, she has often been the deciding vote to pass Trump’s nominations and other MAGA measures.)

Interestingly, Collins’ “no” vote didn’t seem to bother “Daddy” Trump, who didn't target Collins for her dissent like he did Tillis. That and a comment by one of her GOP colleagues saying Collins is a “team player” who “helped them…when we needed that help” with the BBB demonstrates she got a hall pass from party leadership. More importantly, Collins didn’t do a damn thing to reverse the huge cuts to people’s health care that will have fatal results.

Instead Collins’ came up with a convoluted scheme that wouldn’t help anyone…except maybe her 2026 campaign messaging. Now Collins can highlight her purportedly herculean efforts in ads, interviews and debates, claiming her efforts would’ve saved rural hospitals and raised taxes on the rich, if the horrid Democrats hadn’t played politics. Except, of course, she herself was playing a political game. She’s a savvy pol who has cultivated her image while acting legislatively in ways that don’t fit her “concerned” self-portrayal. And she’s had lots of help from the media in furthering that persona.

If only the voters back home really knew where her tendencies lie. Consider the video (below) and her rebuke of Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Democrat from Washington when he dared asked budget czar Russell Vought about his responsibility for impoverished children dying because of the crazy cuts to the USAID budget. In response, Collins hammered her gavel to interrupt and say, “I would ask that members refrain from personal insults and stick to the issues.”

It didn’t matter that Merkley hadn’t insulted Vought. His mere mention of the real world was evidently unacceptable for Collins. Perhaps she was sensitive to the truth: millions of kids will die because of MAGA-cuts championed by Vought, who was supported by Collins.

Unfortunately, most Mainers probably will never know that Collins’ proposal, which was passed, was actually phony baloney. And it’s likely the Maine media won’t explain why. Whoever ends up on the ballot running against Collins might try, but by then, there will be countless other issues to criticize Collins for. Thus, it’s up to you and other concerned citizens to inform friends, family and neighbors that Collins’ inability to stand up to MAGA will quickly have deadly consequences.

Amy Fried spent many years as a political scientist at the University of Maine, teaching and mentoring, earning multiple awards and her current title of Professor Emerita, and publishing research in numerous academic books and articles.

Links:

Game Theory About 17 Million More People Could be Uninsured due to the Big Beautiful Bill and other Policy Changes Senate Republican Bill Would Take Health Care and Food Assistance Away From People to Pay for Tax Cuts for Wealthy Sen. Collins blames Democrats for blocking amendment to boost rural hospital fund Louisiana hospitals warn Mike Johnson of ‘devastation’ from megabill Thom Tillis denounces GOP megabill’s Medicaid cuts in fiery speec In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis