FOLLOW-UP: Yes, Susan Collins did indeed play Charlie Brown to Mitch McConnell's Lucy.

Hey, remember this?

So @SenatorCollins sold out for bills which won’t help much and aren’t gonna happen anyway.@jeffflake sold out for a promise to attend a meeting which won’t happen.@lisamurkowski sold out for destroying her own environment.@SenJohnMcCain sold out for...nothing at all. Huh.

— Charles GetCoveredBa (@charles_gaba) December 3, 2017

BREAKING: The 3 big promises @SenatorCollins got will NOT be done before the final vote on the tax bill. The bill to keep the govt open does NOT include Alexander-Murray, reinsurance, or waiver of Medicare cuts. #mepolitics https://t.co/VWzkz7vAbq

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) December 4, 2017

Not much else to say. Collins is a reasonably intelligent woman; I find it difficult to believe that she didn't know damned well that this would happen.

Sure enough...

President Donald Trump’s legislative affairs director, Marc Short, stood just off the Senate floor as Republicans cast a party-line vote on Trump’s tax package late last year, but his moment of triumph was brief.

As she walked off the floor, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins spotted Short — and she exploded.

The White House had promised Collins, a moderate, that it would seek a vote before recess on guaranteeing payments to health insurers in order to stabilize Obamacare markets, a key issue for her. But under intense opposition from pro-life groups and from House conservatives, no such vote materialized.

Collins berated Short for reneging on the deal and then walked off after Short tried to explain, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

“I was disappointed the deadline slipped,” Collins told POLITICO in an interview.

"Disappointed". Yeah, that's really throwing your political weight around, Senator Collins.

I'll let it go at that. The situation surrounding CSR reimbursement payments has changed dramatically since last fall thanks mainly to Silver Loading, so Alexander-Murray is pretty much meaningless now, and the tax bill (which included repeal of the ACA individual mandate) is long since passed and signed into law regardless, so it's kind of a moot point anyway. But I couldn't resist getting in one more dig at Collins' naivety.