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The
four-term incumbent attracted national attention this summer as
one of three Republican senators who voted in July against a
bill to repeal the law often called Obamacare, a move that
angered U.S. President Donald Trump. She said on Friday that
remaining in the Senate would allow her to use her powerful
voice in reforming the U.S healthcare system.
Collins, who like all Republicans in the Senate in 2009 voted
against the sweeping healthcare legislation, said she believed
urgent action was needed to improve it but criticized the way
repeal efforts had been handled over the summer.
"When we're dealing with an issue that affects millions of
Americans, we need to understand the consequences of what we are
doing, not vote on bills in the middle of the night that have
had no substantive hearings," Collins, 64, told a group of
business leaders in Rockland, a city on the state's midcoast.
"We must stop allowing partisanship to be the pre-existing
condition that prevents meaningful healthcare reform."
Urgent action is needed to stabilize the insurance markets,
including creating high-risk pools, she said. She wants to
require employers to offer healthcare coverage only to people
who work 40 hours a week or more, raising the threshold from 30
hours.
For weeks, Collins had flirted publicly with the idea of
launching a bid to succeed Governor Paul LePage, a fiery
conservative first elected in 2010 on a wave of support from the
populist Tea Party movement. State laws forbid LePage from
seeking a third term.
Collins and LePage mark out the two poles of the state's
Republican Party.
Collins' independence makes her an increasingly powerful player
in Washington, one veteran Maine political observer said.
"She is at the very center of virtually every big policy debate
and big vote in the U.S. Senate," said Mark Brewer, professor of
political science at the University of Maine. "She remains an
incredibly important player on any issue she wants to focus on."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomed the news: "Her
decision to remain in the Senate is important not only for the
people of Maine, who she serves so well, but for the nation as a
whole."
(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Matthew Lewis,
Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)
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