Susan Collins, left, and Lisa Murkowski, flank President Trump during a meeting in June to discuss healthcare. CreditMichael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency

It was about 1:30 am Friday on the East Coast -- and yours truly was watching -- when the US Senate finally moved a vote on the 'Skinny Repeal' of Obamacare. Going into that vote, there were two women concerned citizens knew they could count on: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Indeed, one more anti-vote was needed, and we are so grateful that Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) sent the Senate chamber into gasps, with his very melodramatic 'no' vote. If McCain had voted instead for a bill that Republican Senators acknowledged was a terrible, terrible bill , millions of Americans would have wept in the dark Thursday night. Several senators, including McCain, had gotten sort of a promise from House Speaker Paul Ryan that the House wouldn't do an end run on the Senate and pass IT -- that dreadful piece of legislation that few senators believed in. This was not a scene that comforted Americans across the US -- such a capricious vote on a bill that addresses one-sixth of the economy besides humanity in every state.

Again, AOC stresses our gratefulness to Sen. McCain but Collins and Murkowski are hardly chopped liver. We've written multiple articles from the beginning of these healthcare meetings that the duo has expressed specific concerns over Medicaid cuts and an almost certain devastating impact on rural hospitals. Both have been consistently on the record opposing any and all efforts to shut down Planned Parenthood because the organization is the primary source of healthcare for their female constituents in poor communities. Those are large numbers in both states. And for the record, they are primarily white people.

In explaining her 'no' vote, Sen. Collins repeated her consistent position throughout the process of closed meetings among a group of 13 white Republican men. "I have repeatedly said that healthcare reform, and especially major entitlement reform (that would include Medicaid), should go through the committee process where stakeholders can weight in and ideas can be vetted in a bipartisan forum.

Sen. Murkowski wrote on Twitter: "I've stated time and time again that one of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote. We should not make the mistakes of the past."

Thankfully, most media understood that while Sen. McCain was the much-needed vote, he had two women colleagues who made his decision so critical because he could actually determine the final verdict on Obamacare. The Senator was in rare, eloquent form before returning to Arizona to commence his treatment for a seriously-advanced brain cancer. But it was Collins and Murkowski to declared their positions early on and never veered off course, in spite of numerous threats from Trump himself.

Do any of these Republican white guys wonder if the outcome might have been different if they had just taken Collins and Murkowski seriously, instead of treating them like pesky gnats. It seems not! ~ Anne

Related: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the Health Vote Heroines Gail Collins for The New York Times

Collins and Murkowski Stood Up for Womankind Over the Threats of Men Christina Cauterucci for Slate

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