Sen. Collins said that the Senate Finance Committee’s bill “represents a substantial improvement over the costly and flawed alternative approved by the Senate Health Committee as well as the House bills.” However, she continued, “Nevertheless, the Senate Finance Committee’s bill falls short of the goal of providing access to more affordable health care for all Americans. The goal of health care reform must be to rein in costs and provide consumers with more affordable choices. Yet, many individuals and families would be forced to pay more for their health care under the Finance Committee bill, and they would have fewer choices.”…

Senator Collins expressed her disappointment that the Finance Committee did not do more to contain costs, which she suggests “should have been one of the most important goals of this bill.” The senator remains “hopeful” for a health care reform bill to be passed that “protects affordable health care choices, safeguards Medicare, and reduces costs to the consumer and the taxpayer especially at a time when we simply cannot afford to pay more.”