Susan Collins is playing the part of a naive fool as she enables the GOP's sabotage of health care
Sen. Susan Collins is back at her "See no evil, hear no evil" routine, pretending to the world that reality does not exist. At the very moment Donald Trump's Department of Justice was arguing before a federal courtthat the Affordable Care Act should be completely overturned, struck down, obliterated, here's what Collins was saying:
The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land, and it is the Department of Justice's duty to defend it. The administration should work with Congress to fix the law's problems legislatively, while ensuring that the protections for the millions of Americans who are living with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease remain in place.
And unicorns should walk the land farting rainbow-colored macarons and chocolate truffles. Maybe McConnell will promise her he'll talk to Trump and AG William Barr and fix it. This follows Collins' bleating that it is her "hope and belief that the Supreme Court won't strike the law down." Of course she hopes that. It will reinforce her declaration that she's "proud" of her vote for Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.
In the same breath she also said she's proud of her vote for the GOP tax scam. As a reminder, that bill set the individual mandate penalty at $0. That provision in the tax law was used by the state of Texas and other Republican states—and the Trump administration—to ask the courts to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional, and while they were at it, why not the entire law? Which appears to be just what two of the three judges of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals who heard the case this week seem ready to do.
Remember how Collins gave McConnell her vote on that tax bill because he promised her he'd hold votes on saving Obamacare? Yeah, that. Now she's reprising that role, playing the naive fool again, this time feeling sure that her votes on Trump's behalf haven't resulted in jeopardizing the health care of millions of Americans—and tens of thousands of Mainers.
