ELLSWORTH — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wants her Senate colleagues to devote their undivided attention to the political and economic complexities of reforming America’s health care delivery system.

“The last time Washington had a serious debate about comprehensive health care was more than a decade ago, and it is long overdue for us to tackle this issue.” — US Senator Susan Collins

“We need to have comprehensive reform of our health care system and we need to make it a priority,” Collins told The Ellsworth American last week during a visit to Ellsworth. “The last time Washington had a serious debate about comprehensive health care was more than a decade ago, and it is long overdue for us to tackle this issue.”

Collins said she has drafted a letter to the Senate’s leadership that encourages a full-court press on the issue.

“First, we ought to adopt a resolution that sets as a goal universal access to health care for all Americans,” she said. “In that resolution, we ought to also establish a timeline for congressional consideration of health care legislation.”

The next step, she said, would require every Senate committee that has jurisdiction over “some piece of the health care puzzle” to hold hearings to collect insights and ideas.

“All of us should go out across this country and hold a series of public hearings and get the very best ideas that we can on reforming our health care system,” she said. “And we should consider everything, every idea that is out there. And then we should come back to Washington and spend two months on the Senate floor doing nothing but health care legislation. … We should really make it a priority — two or three months of debating health care policy on the Senate floor.”

Collins has introduced a bipartisan bill in each of the last two congressional sessions that she says would expand access to health care.

It’s important, she said, to understand the demographics of the estimated 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.

“Contrary to what most people think, the uninsured are not poor individuals and are not unemployed individuals,” she said. “People who are very low income and unemployed are generally covered by the Medicaid program, MaineCare in this state.

“The people who are uninsured are low-income working people. They’re uninsured because they cannot afford health insurance. They are uninsured because they work for small businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance. They are uninsured because they are self-employed and cannot afford health insurance. In fact, 83 percent of uninsured Americans work or are in families where at least one person works. I think that’s an astonishing figure.”

Collins’ bill would provide small businesses and the self-employed with “generous” tax credits to allow them to afford health insurance.

“I’ve proposed that businesses with 10 or fewer employees would receive a 50 percent tax credit toward the cost of providing health insurance,” she said. “We would also provide a graduated tax credit for employers with up to 50 or fewer employees. We would also provide that kind of tax credits to people who are uninsured and self-employed.”

Under her bill, low-income workers would get a federal subsidy to help cover health insurance costs.

“It would be a refundable, advanceable tax credit,” she said. “In other words, it would be a subsidy that they could get up front to help them afford health insurance. That would solve the issue for someone who makes too little money to pay taxes, so they normally wouldn’t qualify for a tax credit.”

The bill would also expand community-based health care centers to provide primary care in underserved areas of the state.

“It’s not enough just to provide health insurance,” she said. “You have got to look at access to health care providers.”

Collins’ bill is pending in the Senate Finance Committee.

“Unfortunately, there has been no action on any bills that would make significant changes in our health care system, including mine.”