While everyone focuses on Sen. Joseph Lieberman and conflict inside the Democratic party, we've heard less about another development in the national health care debate: Republicans seem increasingly confident that the two GOP moderates once thought to be possible votes for the Democratic bill, Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, will stay in the opposition camp. Today Collins told reporters that the bill under consideration in the Senate is "too deeply flawed for me to support it." "I don't see voting for the current bill that is on the floor, even with the improvements that have been made," Collins said. "I'm very leery of the impact of nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts, particularly the cuts in home health care, which are completely counterproductive to the goal of lowering costs."
Collins explained that she is continuing to work on the bill not because she intends to vote for it but because, "I think something is going to pass, and I would like to make that bill as good as possible, even if ultimately it's not a bill that I can support."
