As the executive director of the New Mainers Public Health Initiative, a small nonprofit that helps immigrant and refugee communities in this state achieve better health, I am deeply shocked and dismayed by the recently passed tax bill.

I am shocked that Sen. Susan Collins would vote for that bill twice, despite the fact that it repeals the individual mandate — one of the pillars of the Affordable Care Act that helps tens of thousands of Mainers access health insurance. Sen. Collins said herself that this backdoor ACA repeal had no real place in the tax reform bill, and has been trying to secure separate legislation to help control the inevitable rise in premiums and loss in coverage that will occur because of the tax bill.

I am dismayed when I consider that her separate legislative fixes may not come, or may not sufficiently stabilize the rates in Maine. The only thing that is certain now in the insurance markets is uncertainty — and that is always expensive.

Sen. Collins has been an ally to the communities I work with and, indeed, all Mainers who need access to affordable, high-quality health care. I hope that people can continue to count on her to protect those things and that she will do her best to clean up the mess that she has helped in no small part to make in that tax bill.

Abdulkerim Said, Lewiston