The Associated Press caused a bit of a stir in Democratic circles this morning by reporting that Collins, the other moderate GOPer from Maine, may be “open” to backing the reform bill, along with Olympia Snowe.
But Collins’ office sends over the statement that the AP story is based on, and it’s very hard to see how the AP reads it this way. If anything, the statement makes it pretty conclusive that she’ll oppose the final proposal.
The only thing remotely supportive of the proposal from Collins’ statement is that she shares the “goal of passing responsible health care reform” and hopes that after “many improvements” the bill will “achieve bipartisan support.” Anyone paying even cursory attention knows how likely that is to happen.
A more complete version of the AP story is here and it doesn't really back up the "Collins may join Snowe" story either. In it, she's quoted as saying that she'd support a bill -- so long as everything about it was changed.
"My hope is we that can fix the flaws in the bill and come together with a truly bipartisan bill that could garner widespread support," Collins said in an interview. "I think this bill is far superior to the ones passed by the Senate (health) committee and the three House committees, but it needs substantial additional work."
In other words, the most conservative healthcare reform bill in Washington -- hands-down, no contest -- isn't conservative enough. Not only would the Baucus bill need to be loaded up with more suck to get Collins to vote for it, but all the other bills would have to be dragged right as well. Then the whole thing would have to be rolled up into a final bill that's way more conservative than anything out there now.
Then she'd vote for it. I'm sorry, but isn't that the position of every, single Republican Senator other than Snowe?
In other words, she's not voting for this; no way, no how. That may change as time goes on, but the "Collins signals she may back bill" story is extremely overstating the case.
"Check out the statement yourself, but it still seems clear that Snowe is the only Republican who’s going to support the reform proposal anytime soon," Sargent writes. "Happy to be wrong."
I don't think he is.
