WASHINGTON — The maverick stood with his party on Tuesday, casting a crucial vote in the Republican drive to repeal “Obamacare.” But then, like an angry prophet, Sen. John McCain condemned the tribal politics besetting the nation.
Confronting an aggressive brain cancer, the 80-year-old Arizonan served notice he would not vote for the GOP legislation as it stands now. McCain’s impassioned speech held the rapt attention of his colleagues in the Senate chamber.
“Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio, television and the internet,” he intoned. “To hell with them! They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood.”
A few minutes earlier, McCain dramatically entered the chamber for the pivotal vote, his first since surgery and his cancer diagnosis in Arizona. Unified for once, Republicans and Democrats applauded and whooped for the six-term lawmaker. “Aye,” he said, thumbs up with both hands, for the GOP vote to move ahead on debate.
After he voted, McCain stood at his seat and accepted hugs and handshakes from all senators in both parties, drawing laughter from the spectators’ gallery when he and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders exchanged an awkward embrace.
McCain then spoke his mind. His face was pale, cheek bruised, a red scar and stitches above his left eye where doctors had removed a blood clot. But his voice was strong. He offered a bit of self-deprecation, saying he was “looking a little worse for wear.”
He bemoaned the lack of legislative accomplishments in the current Congress and the GOP’s secretive process in working on repealing Obamacare. He issued a plea for Democrats and Republicans to work together.
Obama and the Democrats shouldn’t have pushed the Affordable Care Act through on party-line votes when they controlled Washington back in 2010, McCain said, “and we shouldn’t do the same with ours. Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate?”
That would involve committee hearings and testimony from experts and interested parties, an incremental process that could take months.
He blasted the path taken by Republican leaders “coming up with a proposal behind closed doors in consultation with the administration, then springing it on skeptical members, trying to convince them that it was better than nothing.
“I don’t think that’s going to work in the end, and it probably shouldn’t,” he said.
Debates in the Senate have become “more partisan, more tribal, more of the time than at any time I can remember,” he lamented.
With President Donald Trump threatening electoral retribution for Republicans who don’t toe the line, McCain urged senators to stand up for their own constitutional status.
“Whether or not we are of the same party, we are not the president’s subordinates,” he said. “We are his equal!”
People with health care problems had speculated on social media how McCain would vote, and his decision disappointed many. Addressing concerns that tens of millions will lose coverage if the Republican bill becomes law, McCain said the process is far from over.
“I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue,” he said. “I will not vote for this bill as it is today. It’s a shell of a bill right now.”
Arizona is one of 31 states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is worried about tens of thousands losing their health insurance. That has to be addressed, said McCain.
The Arizona senator has emerged as one of Trump’s most outspoken GOP critics. During the presidential campaign Trump had mocked McCain for his capture by the Vietnamese.
The speech Tuesday received a standing ovation.
“He’s tough as a boot,” said Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. “Many people understandably would be curled up in bed in the fetal position.”
McCain’s return was reminiscent of a similar scenario involving McCain’s good friend, the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who returned to the Senate in July 2008 while battling brain cancer to vote on Medicare legislation, his dramatic entry in the chamber eliciting cheers and applause. Kennedy died in August 2009. (The current Sen. Kennedy is no relation.)
McCain himself campaigned heavily on the “Obamacare” repeal issue last year as he won re-election to a sixth and almost certainly final Senate term. But he has not been a booster of the GOP health bill.
His best friend in the Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said he’s been impatient to get back to work.
“Is it surprising that he would get out of a hospital bed and go to work? No,” Graham said. “It’s surprising he’s been in the hospital this long.”
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Senate opens ‘Obamacare’ debate at last but outcome in doubt
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prodded by President Donald Trump, a bitterly divided Senate voted at last Tuesday to move forward with the Republicans’ long-promised legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.
The final tally was 51-50, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie after two Republicans joined all 48 Democrats in voting “no.”
At the White House, Trump wasted no time in declaring a win and slamming the Democrats anew.
“I’m very happy to announce that, with zero of the Democrats’ votes, the motion to proceed on health care has just passed. And now we move forward toward truly great health care for the American people,” Trump said.
At its most basic, the Republican legislation is aimed at undoing Obamacare’s unpopular mandates for most people to carry insurance and businesses to offer it. The GOP would repeal Obamacare taxes and unwind an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, the disabled and nursing home residents The result would be 20 million to 30 million people losing insurance throughout a decade, depending on the version of the bill.
The GOP legislation has polled abysmally, while Obamacare itself has grown steadily more popular. Yet most Republicans argue that failing to deliver on their promises to pass repeal-and-replace legislation would be worse than passing an unpopular bill because it would expose the GOP as unable to govern despite controlling majorities in the House, Senate and White House.
Tuesday’s vote amounted to a procedural hurdle for legislation for which a final form is impossible to predict under the Senate’s byzantine amendment process, which will unfold during the next several days.
Indeed senators had no clear idea of what they would ultimately be voting on, and in an indication of the uncertainty ahead, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate will “let the voting take us where it will.” The expectation is that he will bring up a series of amendments, including a straight-up repeal and fuller replacement legislation, to see where consensus might lie.
“The people who sent us here expect us to begin this debate, to have the courage to tackle the tough issues,” McConnell said ahead of the vote.
