By Gillian Graham

Copyright centralmaine

Sen. Susan Collins suggested Republicans could have to make changes to President Donald Trump’s budget bill and defended the ousted director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during remarks Monday at the World Medical Innovation Forum in Boston.

During the conference for health care executives, Collins said cuts to Medicaid included in the One Big Beautiful Bill will be “devastating” for rural states and for people who rely on the program for health care. Once the impacts of those cuts become clear a little more than a year from now, she said lawmakers will face “tremendous pressure to change the law.”

Collins, a Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, was one of three Republicans who voted against the sweeping domestic policy bill that cut $1 trillion in health care and food assistance programs.

On Monday, she said she’s concerned about the impact of Medicaid cuts on both recipients and on the health care system, particularly rural hospitals. In Maine, 400,000 of the state’s 1.3 million people rely on the Medicaid program for their health care.

“So, it’s about a third of our population, and these cuts, I worry, are going to be devastating for states like Maine, for the people who rely on it, but you know a lot of these individuals are still going to show up in the emergency room,” she said.

Collins said five of the state’s 32 hospitals are “teetering on the brink of closure” because they’re already in trouble and Medicaid reimbursements are not high enough.

In addition to her criticism of Medicaid cuts, Collins also defended Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was fired by the White House after she refused to adopt Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccination policy.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions panel, on which Collins serves, will hear testimony Wednesday from Monarez. Collins praised the panel’s chair, Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, for his decision to hold a hearing to give Monarez a chance to talk about Kennedy’s demands.

“She was asked to rubber stamp recommendations that she disagreed with, vehemently, on vaccines, and she refused to do that,” Collins said. “She is a person of great integrity.”

Collins, who voted to confirm Kennedy, said she opposed his decision to fire all members of the advisory board on vaccines, adding that she believes it will lead to less independent and less professional recommendations.

“When I read that the state of Florida has lifted its vaccination requirements for school children, I’m really worried that we’re going to see outbreaks of measles,” she said.

This story will be updated.