Don’t count me out! Senator John McCain arrives in the Senate after cranial surgery to vote on Obamacare debate.
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In a true 11th-hour victory for Republicans and opponents of Obamacare, the Senate decided today to open debate on at least one of several bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature legislation. Fifty Republican senators voted yes to open debate, 50 Democratic ones voted no, and Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie.
The result is that the Senate will debate and consider several possible bills that either repeal and replace Obamacare or simply repeal it. Whether any of these bills will pass is a whole other question, but for now, Senate Republicans have scored their first victory in what many considered to be a lost cause.
It’s certainly been a dramatic day in the Senate. Despite fears of certain failure, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the question of whether to debate a bill to repeal Obamacare to a vote. Until an hour or two ago, most observers thought even the vote to begin deliberations would be defeated.
As voting got underway, protesters in the Senate gallery disrupted the session, shouting “Kill the bill, don’t kill us!” and “Shame, shame, shame!” They were escorted out.
Of the three Republican senators who had threatened to vote against even beginning debate, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska did indeed vote no, but Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia voted yes. With all Democrats sure to vote no (which they did), Republicans needed one more yes vote to produce a tie that Vice President Mike Pence could break in their favor. In short, they needed John McCain of Arizona, the former Republican presidential candidate whom Obama defeated to win his first term in office.
John McCain’s dramatic return
McCain has been absent from the Senate due to cranial surgery to remove a blood clot behind his eye. During the course of that surgery, doctors also discovered brain cancer. Nevertheless, McCain managed to return to Washington to not only cast his yes vote but also to make one of the most heartfelt and effective speeches anyone has ever witnessed.
In it, he sharply criticized both Democrats and his Republican colleagues for trying to pass legislation on their own instead of working across the aisle. He told them that working together to pass effective legislation would be more satisfying than “winning”–he used air quotes.
He then told his fellow senators to, “stop listening to the bombasting loud mouths on radio and television–to hell with them!” And he reminded his colleagues of the awesome responsibility of the Senate, intended to be the more deliberative house of Congress, more removed from the turbulence of public debate than the House of Representatives is, and also an important check on the power of the president. The president cannot make important appointments or some foreign policy moves without the Senate’s approval, he said. And he added, “We are not the president’s subordinates, we are his equal.”
He went on to say he would not support the bill currently before the Senate. “It’s a shell of a bill right now, we all know that,” he said. He also said we all know that health care in this country is a mess, and that he wanted Senate Republicans and Democrats to work together and pass something “full of compromises.”
Pointing out that Republican senators working alone had not accomplished much of anything other than the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, McCain told them: “We are getting nothing done, my friends. We are getting nothing done.” He told his Senate colleagues of both parties that it was time to “trust one another” and “rely on humility.”
Those colleagues gave McCain not one but two standing ovations. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they actually did what he said?
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