If it weren’t for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) I would not have been able to open two restaurants and create more than a dozen jobs. If not for ACA health care coverage, when I had a pregnancy complication that resulted in a $40,000 hospital bill, we would’ve gone bankrupt and been forced to shut down our first business six months in.

There are thousands of individuals and families just like mine in Maine — small business owners, artists, hospitality workers, carpenters, fishermen and more — who have once or continue to rely on the ACA and its enhanced premium tax credits to afford health care. It’s critical Congress protect these expiring tax credits. People’s health and lives are at risk.

I am furious at Susan Collins for refusing to do anything to protect Mainers’ health care. In 2020, Collins ran on the power and influence she’d have, and yet she has refused to leverage any of that power to stand up for us or take actual action to extend these expiring tax credits.

Instead, Collins advanced the GOP tax bill that guts Medicaid and puts 61,000 Mainers on track to lose health care coverage, and she has voted against a bill that would extend the ACA’s tax credits. Tens of thousands will see health care costs skyrocket and many will lose their coverage thanks to both Collins’ actions and inaction.

Briana Bononcini
Portland