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Maine’s two U.S. senators are concerned that major health care cuts included in President Donald Trump’s budget proposal could negatively impact rural hospitals, many of which already are struggling.

But only one, Sen. Angus King, has vowed to vote against the measure that Trump and his allies have dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is expected to be brought to the Senate floor this weekend ahead of the July 4 deadline Trump set.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine speaks at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Jan. 14. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)

King explained his opposition to the bill in a news conference Wednesday, calling the budget proposal “the worst, most regressive and most harmful piece of legislation I have ever seen,” because it would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy and cause millions to lose health care coverage through Medicaid.

“I have no choice whatsoever but to vote ‘no’ on this bill,” said King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. “I’m really hoping my colleagues come to their senses and realize there’s a lot better way to do this than to take away from people who can least afford it and give to the people who don’t need it.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins, meanwhile, has not made herself available for interviews over the last two weeks or indicated how she will vote. The Washington, D.C., media have reported this week that Collins is concerned about the bill’s impacts on rural hospitals.

Collins reportedly has been advocating for a $100 billion stabilization fund that would help rural hospitals cope with the loss of funding through proposed changes to the Medicaid provider taxes. Maine hospitals have been sounding the alarm for weeks about the impacts of the cuts.

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And Gov. Janet Mills also sent a letter this week to Maine’s congressional delegation echoing similar fears that the cuts would shift costs dramatically to states.

“To put it plainly, this bill will have profoundly harmful consequences for Maine and our people,” Mills wrote. “If enacted, thousands of Maine people will lose health coverage; vulnerable rural hospitals will face increased financial pressure; Maine families will lose access to healthy food, the end of clean energy and energy efficiency tax credits will eliminate jobs and raise energy costs, and hardworking Maine people will continue to bear an unfair tax burden while the wealthiest Americans will receive a tax cut.”

But the Senate Finance Committee only recommended a $15 billion fund for hospitals, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, ruled out Collins’ request, according to Politico.

At a budget hearing Wednesday, Collins expressed additional concerns to U.S Attorney General Pam Bondi about a proposed 30% reduction in funding for programs that support victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in the U.S. Department of Justice’s budget.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine at a Senate hearing in May 2025. (Joe Gromelski/Special to the Press Herald)

“I hope we can work together to get to a better place on the budget because I am convinced by talking to advocacy groups and survivors themselves that we need to do more, and often times rural areas of America just don’t have the services,” Collins said.

Republicans are reportedly considering delaying the Medicaid cuts until after the 2026 election, which would provide cover for those up for reelection, including Collins, who is seeking a sixth term.

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Trump was expected to hold a news conference Thursday afternoon to muster support for his bill, a version of which passed the House last month.

But the bill’s path forward in the Senate became more complicated Thursday morning when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that changes proposed to Medicaid provider taxes, which are key to achieving desired federal savings in the bill, did not meet the requirements for reconciliation. That means Republicans would need 60 votes to pass their budget, rather than a simple majority, something that almost certainly wouldn’t happen.

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate and can afford only three defections to pass a majority budget, since Vice President JD Vance could break the tie. The Senate could vote to overrule the parliamentarian, but Thune has said they would not do that.

King, who has been far more critical of Trump’s budget than Collins, detailed his opposition to the bill in a video news conference on Wednesday, saying the tax provisions for the wealthy would cause lower-income Mainers to lose health care coverage through MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program. He said it could cause as many as a half dozen Maine hospitals to close and others to reduce services, which would impact all residents.

King also panned the concept of a stabilization fund to rural hospitals, saying it would do nothing to help the estimated 60,000 Mainers who are expected to lose health coverage through the adoption of work requirements, which have proven to reduce enrollment among people eligible for Medicaid by requiring additional paperwork.

“It doesn’t do anything to at all for those people who are losing their coverage — they’re still out in the cold,” King said, “It’s a kind of patchwork fix. To me, it’s an admission that there are some real problems with this bill, so rather than try to patch it, let’s kill it this weekend and start over.”

Instead of extending tax cuts to the wealthy, King said lawmakers should only extend tax breaks to those earning less than $400,000 — which he said would not require “Draconian cuts” to the health care system, and drive up the national deficit by an estimated $2.4 trillion dollars.

‘There’s very little good about this bill,” King said. “We can do a middle-class tax cut without doing all of this damage.”

Randy Billings is a government watchdog and political reporter who has been the State House bureau chief since 2021. He was named the Maine Press Association’s Journalist of the Year in 2020. He joined...

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