On Sunday, Senate GOP leaders added language to the bill that would have shifted money to states such as Alaska and Maine in an apparent attempt to sway Republican holdouts, including Collins.
A summary of the revised version also projected increases in federal Medicaid funding for Arizona and Maine, compared with prior estimates.
Those changes came in the wake of Arizona’s Sen. John McCain’s announcement on Friday that he could not support the bill, which would turn money from the Affordable Care Act into a state block-grant program.
McCain joined Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul, who opposed the bill because it did not fully repeal Obamacare.
Republicans were facing a Sept. 30 deadline to be able to pass a repeal bill by a simple majority. That chance has been lost following Tuesday’s developments.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was one of the key holdouts, as was Ted Cruz of Texas.
President Donald Trump amped up pressure Sunday on reluctant Republican senators, calling Alaska, Arizona, Maine and Kentucky “big winners” under the now-scuttled GOP plan.
“7 years of Repeal & Replace and some Senators are not there,” he tweeted, alluding to the party’s repeated promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act since its 2010 enactment.
The revised bill would have given states more decision-making authority on how to allocate health care dollars.
It also included new language addressing concerns about how Americans with pre-existing conditions would fare. It indicated that states “shall maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions.”
However, opponents of the measure — including major insurance organizations, health provider groups and consumer advocates — said the proposed legislation would have gutted Medicaid, the government-run insurance program for the poor, and it threatened key consumer protections.
“I think ultimately the flexibility that’s being offered to states here is the flexibility to make politically painful choices about what to cut, where to cut, who to cut, and how deeply,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms.