What Does Susan Collins Want?
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Igor Volsky has a good post taking a look at Senator Susan Collins’ objections to the Finance Committee version of health reform. She appears to me to be taking a constructive tone with regard to the whole thing, but as is frustratingly often the case on this issue her concerns are somewhat contradictory. She’s concerned the bill doesn’t do enough to ensure affordability, but she opposes additional revenue measures to enhance affordability. She’s concerned the bill doesn’t do enough to control costs, but she’s voiced objections to many of the specific cost-containment measures in the bill. A robust public option would ameliorate both of these concerns to some extent, but there’s no indication that’s what she’s talking about:
If Collins is unwilling to recognize or support real cost containment measures, then Democrats are wasting their time wooing the other Senator from Maine. After all, she’s not willing to back policies that support her own rhetoric.
Or maybe to put it another way, wooing Collins makes sense in principle but the onus should be on her to make concrete proposals about what modifications would lead to her supporting a bill. Oftentimes it seems to me that the Senate’s perennial quest for bipartisanship gets bogged down in oddly theoretical discussions or else involve preemptive capitulation unmatched by hard promises of support. The leadership has some decisions to make as they work to bring a final text of a bill to the floor. This is a great opportunity for moderate Republicans—or even immoderate ones—to go on record about changes they’d like to see made in exchange for a yes vote. But vague, hand-wavy expressions of generalized concern about cost and affordability don’t move the ball forward at all.
19 Responses to “What Does Susan Collins Want?”
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October 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Sounds like maybe she likes health reform, but only as a friend. Or a brother.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Exactly, Mark. She’s being vague because she intends to vote against any reform, period.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
That’s completely unfair. She does not intend to vote gainst any reform, period–she simply intends to vote against any reform bill that comes up for a vote in the Senate.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Another Republican Senator revealed to be a lying squid? Who would have thought it possible?
/There can’t be an infinite number of them, right? This has to stop somewhere, right?
October 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
God I hate these people
October 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
When the CBO scores for the various flavors of ‘public option’ come back as they work to come up with a House bill and the one with the strongest public option (Medicare + 5%) scores as the biggest cost savings some of the contrary conditions put forth by centrists should be easier to knock down.
Or bullshit will prevail yet again.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
As someone who earns his living negotiating deals, it is obvious that Sen Collins is not negotiating in good faith. She has no intention of voting for health care reform but doesn’t want to say that to her voters in Maine who want reform. So she conditions her vote on a series of demands that can’t possible be met, and hopes no one in Maine pays close attention.
Many moderates from both parties are playing this game.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are cut from the same cloth: they are the best that a tiny state has to offer America. Never before has anyone cared what they have to say…All of a sudden, they run America.
There are no deeply-held principles in these two women – just a lust for power and a desire to preen for the press and re-load their re-election war chests. Unfortunately for the country, that means cruel amendments to legislation for no other reason than to claim they cut costs.
It’s too bad the senate is so anti-democratic that these fools get to run the show. I don’t recall voting for either one of them.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Collins isn’t on either the HELP or the Finance Committees, so in a way it makes sense for her to not be especially specific while the bill-writing is in the committee stages. If she gave specifics now, then that would be something she could be held to for the bill that Reid and others put together out of the two Senate bills or for the reconciled House/Senate bill. Right now, folks like Snowe and Grassley and some conservative Dems have done the work for her. She has had no reason to do anything other than sit pretty and say something offhand every now and then to keep herself salient but not held to anything. She’s saving her cards for later.
Ppl on this thread likely know exactly how all this works, but a helpful refresher graphic.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
IOW, it’s time to tell Sen. Collins: put up or shut up.
First, finish having that argument with yourself. If you want cost containment, tell us what cost containment measures work for you, or what’s wrong with the ones the Dems like. If you’r worried about affordability, tell us how you’d pay for more subsidies.
And once you’ve resolved your internal debates, tell us what you’d vote for, and let us decide whether we want to pay that price for your vote.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The only way she MIGHT vote for it, is if Snowe decides not to vote for it in the end. She is the Jan Brady to Snowe’s Marsha.
I think she has no intention of voting for it, but she’s sensitive to the policy persuasion of her constituency. It’s possible, if Snowe says no to the ultimate bill, that she’d find the prospect of stealing the limelight irresistible, but don’t hold your breath.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
But vague, hand-wavy expressions of generalized concern about cost and affordability don’t move the ball forward at all.
Which might be something worth thinking about if there were any reason to believe Collins is actually concerned with moving the ball forward.
Far more likely her utmost concern — as is the case with most law-makers — is keeping her job. “Vagueness” and “hand-wavy expressions of generalized concern” are exactly what you’d expect from someone who is highly cautious, and is being very careful to keep a moistened figure in the wind, until it’s time to vote. Heck, don’t be surprised if she comes down with flu on the eve of a cloture vote. The bottom line is Collins is part of a clique (Republicans in Congress) that doesn’t put up with bullshit from its members, but she also represents an increasingly blue state where comprehensive reform is popular. And yes, Olympia Snow faces comparable restraints, sure, but Susan Collins isn’t quite as popular as Snowe (which mught seem counterintuitive, but the thing is, you’d have to figure Snowe could easily become a Democrat if need be — or win reelection as an independent, and McConnell surely is aware of this, and can’t therefore lay a glove on her; I think it’s not as clear Collins could do the same).
October 15th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Come on people. Health care reform is too expensive. It’s also not expensive enough. It increases the deficit too much, and it’s deficit-reduction measures are too harsh. How could any senator vote for something as expensive, cheap, deficit-exploding, and deficit-reducing as that?
October 15th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Far more likely her utmost concern — as is the case with most law-makers — is keeping her job.
Collins beat her challenger, Congressman Tom Allen, who already represented half the state, by 23 points. And this happened in the best Democratic year in God knows how long. She doesn’t have to worry about keeping her job.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
MY “What does Susan Collins want?”
She wants me in her boudoir. I have told her I will accept only on condition she swears allegiance to the Democratic Party.
Yes, I am willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for my party.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
MY “What does Susan Collins want?”
Something for which you need to boost your name recognition, but not piss off the party moguls. You need to act sane, for ticket-balancing purposes (one crazy, one sane) but not too sane, or the base might not believe your bona fides.
It’s a tough straddle, a narrow path to find.
I’m guessing the vice-presidency. I hope nothing higher.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Collins beat her challenger, Congressman Tom Allen, who already represented half the state, by 23 points. And this happened in the best Democratic year in God knows how long. She doesn’t have to worry about keeping her job.
Jason: re-read what I wrote. My point was, if the GOP wanted to make her life miserable if she supported the Dems on healthcare, the path to success outside of the Republican party isn’t as clear cut for her as it is for Snowe. Sure, I suppose the Democrats in the Senate would welcome her with open arms, but at the end of the day she isn’t exactly a classic, progressive Democrat, and therefore Democrats in Maine would be pretty darned justified in mounting a primary challenge. Doesn’t mean she’d lose the nomination, but it does make it more likely she’d go on to lose the general election (she wouldn’t be able to count on the support of miffed conservatives, after all, who would no doubt support the GOP nominee). I just think Snowe’s absolutely unassailable in Maine no matter what. Collins, despite her convincing victory in ‘08 (Tom Allen ran an absolutely abysmal campaign), isn’t quite in the same league, IMO.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Both Maine Republican senators are just that: the sort of Republicans that can get the people of Maine to elect them. They sound moderate, even mildly liberal, until party loyalty demands an up-or-down. As it does on judicial nominations. As it will on health care. I agree with Jasper. Both senators are in safe seats. It would take the kind of scandal that just isn’t there to unseat either of them. Pity.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Nicely said.