On June 30, 2025, Maine Senator Susan Collins voted against a motion to remove the new paperwork requirements in the tax-and-spending bill and against a motion to strike its Medicaid cuts. Medicaid's agency, run by Mehmet Oz, whom she voted to confirm, then wrote a rule that narrows who counts as medically frail and exempt from the work requirement.
Collins voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon, whose division cut its disability enforcement by about 85 percent, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department joined states in asking a court to strike the rule against needlessly placing people with disabilities in institutions.
Susan Collins's Votes and Confirmations on Disability Rights
- Collins Voted Against Removing the Medicaid Paperwork Rules That Threaten Disabled Adults' Coverage. On June 30, 2025, Susan Collins voted no on a motion to send the tax-and-spending bill back to committee to remove provisions stripping people of federal benefits through the creation of new administrative burdens and paperwork requirements. It failed 48 to 52. The law requires states to verify that adults on expansion Medicaid work 80 hours a month or qualify for an exemption, and the Medicaid agency projects that enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027. Disabled adults who are not on disability-based Medicaid must prove they qualify as medically frail, and Georgetown's Center for Children and Families found that the verification will place an enormous administrative burden on individuals, health care providers, health plans, and states.
- Collins Voted Against Striking the Medicaid Cuts That Put Home Care at Risk. On June 30, 2025, Susan Collins voted against a second motion that would strike any provision that cuts funding for Medicaid. It failed 47 to 53. Home and community-based services, which let people with disabilities live at home rather than in institutions, are largely an optional Medicaid benefit, the Bipartisan Policy Center notes, the first services states trim when Medicaid money shrinks. People on Medicaid home care waiting lists waited 32 months on average in 2025, KFF found.
- Collins Voted to Confirm Mehmet Oz, Whose Agency Narrowed Medicaid's Disability Exemption. On April 3, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Mehmet Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and he was confirmed 53 to 45. Oz's agency issued a June 2026 rule for the work requirement under which a condition must significantly impair a person's ability to work, and Georgetown's Center for Children and Families concluded that Fewer people will qualify as medically frail.
- Collins Voted to Confirm the Justice Department Officials Who Cut Disability Rights Enforcement by About 85 Percent. Susan Collins voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general on February 4, 2025 and Harmeet Dhillon as assistant attorney general for civil rights on April 3, 2025, when Dhillon was confirmed 52 to 45. The Civil Rights Division's own website showed an approximately 85 percent reduction of disability-related enforcement activity in the administration's first year compared with the year before, according to Red Line for Civil Rights, a tracker run by former Justice Department lawyers, and its Disability Rights Section had no permanent chief after the long-time chief was pushed out in April 2025.
- Collins Voted to Confirm the Officials Whose Departments Joined States to Strike the Rule Against Needless Institutionalization. Susan Collins voted to confirm Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025 and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary on February 13, 2025. By June 2026 Blanche was serving as acting Attorney General, NOTUS reported. In June 2026 the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the disability laws impose no legal duty on states to provide integrated services, and the Justice Department, representing Kennedy's department, switched sides and agreed with the states that the requirement should be undone. On September 23, 2026, a federal court in Texas vacated the entire integration provision which includes specific prohibitions against segregation and institutionalization from the health department's Section 504 rule. People with disabilities who want services in their communities may have to go to greater lengths, including suing states, the Florida Phoenix reported.
- Collins Voted to Confirm Linda McMahon, Whose Education Department Dismissed Thousands of Civil Rights Complaints. On March 3, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Linda McMahon as secretary of education, and she was confirmed 51 to 45. About 12,000 complaints were pending before Trump took office, more than half concerning students with disabilities, and under McMahon the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights dismissed more than 6,000 complaints without an investigation, The Hechinger Report found, after seven of its 11 regional offices were closed.
- Collins Voted to Confirm the Labor Secretary Who Kept Subminimum Wages for Workers With Disabilities. On March 10, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of labor. In July 2025 Chavez-DeRemer's department withdrew its proposal to phase out the issuance of subminimum wage certificates, so employers can still pay some workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.
- Collins Voted to Confirm the Social Security Commissioner as Disability Hearing Backlogs Grew. On May 6, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Frank Bisignano as commissioner of Social Security, and a month earlier she had voted against an amendment to protect Social Security's phone service. The number of people waiting for a disability hearing rose by more than 73,000 from January 2025 to February 2026, to nearly 344,000, and the agency lost 13 percent of its administrative law judges, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.
What the Disability Cuts Under Susan Collins's Votes Mean for Maine
- Home care waiting list. 2,839 people in Maine were on waiting lists for Medicaid home and community-based services in 2026, KFF found.
- Disability benefits. 46,767 disabled workers in Maine received Social Security disability benefits at the end of 2024, according to the Social Security Administration, and the national hearing backlog means longer waits for those who appeal a denial.
- Special education. Maine has the third highest percentage of special education students in the country, Maine Morning Star reported, so the Education Department's civil rights backlog falls hard on Maine families who file disability complaints.
Frequently Asked Questions About Susan Collins on Disability rights
What is Susan Collins's record on disability rights under Trump?
Susan Collins voted on June 30, 2025 against motions to remove the tax-and-spending bill's Medicaid paperwork requirements and funding cuts, and she voted to confirm the officials who carried out the disability rollbacks that followed. They include Mehmet Oz, whose agency narrowed the medically frail exemption, Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon, whose division cut disability enforcement, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Todd Blanche, whose departments helped vacate the Section 504 integration rule.
What happened to the Section 504 integration rule under the officials Susan Collins confirmed?
Susan Collins voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general, and in 2026 the Justice Department, representing Kennedy's department, joined five states in asking a court to strike the rule's integration provisions, which a court did on September 23, 2026.
How did Susan Collins vote on the Medicaid paperwork rules that affect people with disabilities?
Susan Collins voted no on June 30, 2025 on the Coons motion to remove the bill's new paperwork requirements and on the Wyden motion to strike its Medicaid funding cuts, and both motions failed. The Medicaid agency now projects the work requirement will cut enrollment by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027.
Last updated: 2026-10-25