Through one of Capitol Hill’s strangest weeks, two Republican senators hailing from the northernmost states on the east and west coasts consistently voted against every variation of health care reform offered by a GOP majority desperate to repeal, and perhaps replace, the Affordable Care Act.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they couldn’t cast a vote that would hurt millions of Americans who would lose insurance under each of the three plans proposed by their party’s leadership.

In the end, with a last-minute boost from U.S. Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, the pair emerged victorious.

President Donald Trump said three Republicans, 46 Democrats and two independents in the Senate who killed the GOP’s last proposal in the wee hours of Friday morning “let the American people down.”

Not everyone saw it that way, though.

John Weaver, a campaign strategist for McCain and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said the trio of Republican opponents not only kept millions “from losing vital health care,” but “they also saved an unwitting GOP under poor leadership.”

What happens next is a mystery. The Republicans who control both houses of Congress remain eager to follow through on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare but they appear to have no options left to press on with the endeavor.

Collins has said that it is “going to be very difficult to thread the needle, there’s no doubt about it.”

But she has long advocated a more open, bipartisan and traditional approach to what she called an “enormously complex” task to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

She said the Senate needs to “bring in experts,” hold public hearings and try to find ways to reduce health care costs while ensuring as many people as possible are covered by insurance.

The Maine senator said it’s important to get input from all sides to draft legislation that gets the job done, an assessment shared by her Senate colleague from Maine, independent Angus King.

“We should not be making fundamental changes in a vital safety net program that’s been on the books for 50 years, the Medicaid program, without having a single hearing to evaluate what the consequences are going to be,” Collins told CNN last weekend.

Collins said she wants to work with GOP and Democratic senators “to fix the flaws” in Obamacare instead of plunging forward with a radical overhaul that may hurt too many people.

This story will be updated.

scollins@sunjournal.com

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