Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine on Sunday told CNN host Jake Tapper she wouldn't be swayed by President Donald Trump's threat to cut off funding for Obamacare payments.
"It really would be detrimental to some of the most vulnerable citizens if those payments were cut off," said Collins on "State of the Union."
"The people they benefit are the people who make 100 percent to 250 percent of the poverty rate, so we're talking about low income Americans who would be devastated if those payments were cut off," she said. "The threats to cut off those payments has contributed to the instability in the insurance market, but the first bill we should consider is how to stabilize the market and that is a key component to ensure that those payments continue to be made to benefit low-income Americans."
Trump on Saturday tweeted, "if a new healthcare bill is not approved quickly, bailouts for insurance companies and bailouts for members of Congress will end very soon!"
He was referring to cost-sharing reduction payments, which lower the amount individuals have to pay for deductibles, copayment and insurance.
Republicans suffered a major defeat Friday when a stripped-down Obamacare repeal bill was defeated when three party members voted it down.
Collins was one of them.
"We need to go back to the HELP committee and the finance committee, identify the problems, carefully evaluate possible solutions through hearings and then produce a series of bills to correct these problems, the most serious of which is the pending collapse of the insurance markets and I certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse," she told Tapper.
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