McCain ‘Cannot in Good Conscience’ Vote for Obamacare Repeal Bill
No, the bill is not dead yet.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) officially decided he will vote no on the Graham-Cassidy bill, which is the latest attempt the GOP has taken to repeal and replace Obamacare. From CNN:
“I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal,” the Arizona Republican said in a statement. “I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will effect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. Without a full CBO score, which won’t be available by the end of the month, we won’t have reliable answers to any of those questions.”
But this does not mean the bill is officially dead. The Republicans can only afford two defectors, which they have reached: McCain and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul called out the bill on Twitter last week, calling it Obamacare Lite. He also said that he “won’t be bribed or bullied” into voting for a bill “that KEEPS most of Obamacare.” From Politico:
“Rand Paul, or whoever votes against Hcare Bill, will forever (future political campaigns) be known as ‘the Republican who saved Obamacare,’” Trump warned.
Paul responded in kind, tweeting that “no one is more opposed to Obamacare than I am” but asserting, “The current bill isn’t repeal.”
“I won’t vote for Obamacare Lite that keeps 90% of the taxes & spending just so some people can claim credit for something that didn’t happen,” Paul said.
Reports have said that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “is also to vote no on the proposal.” CNN continued:
It’s unlikely considering the fact that Collins said Friday afternoon that she was leaning against the bill and had key concerns that the legislation did not do enough to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions.
“I’m leaning against the bill,” Collins said Friday at a Portland, Maine, event, according to The Portland Press Herald.
But if she votes yes then it’s at 50-50, which means Vice President Mike Pence can come in and cast his vote as the tiebreak.
Kemberlee blogged last week that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he would bring the bill to the floor this week if he had the votes to pass it.
Paul also said that the bill only redistributes money and does not actually repeal. He may have a point. From The Washington Times:
Under the plan, Obamacare money that pays for an expansion of Medicaid and that subsidizes coverage for many of those who buy insurance on the exchanges would be pooled and instead given to states as block grants. The states would then tailor the money to their own health care plans.
The bill would immediately repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring people to get covered or pay a tax and its rule requiring large employers to provide coverage or face crippling penalties. It also scraps the 2010 law’s tax on medical device sales.
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Comments
Many veterans would say that McCain doesn’t have a conscience.
‘Songbird’
I had nearly the same reaction: McCain has a conscience?
Who’da thunk?
He ain’t got no “Soul” either………
He can’t dance, and he ain’t got rhythm!
cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal,” the Arizona Republican said in a statement. “I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats,
You just don’t get it John, they(dims) will NOT work with you on the bill.
McCain must be costing Soros a lot of money. Two traitors!
John McCain; the scourging of Hobbiton part IX.
McCain is a Mendoucheous Dotard
He has morphed into Saruman, seduced by the allure of Dumb-o-crat propaganda.
This clown has no conscience – on behalf of people who have not oppressed him. His conscience is with enemies of our nation.
A happy sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome.
Lets remember that the state of Arizona healthcare premiums went up about 116% this year! Thanks so much Johnny boy!
Arizona see what you did reelecting this idiot.
McCain’s big purge
The Arizona senator’s team has been ridding the state’s GOP apparatus of his tea party foes.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/john-mccain-arizona-tea-party-113849
I recall blogging several years ago and defending the GOP from Left-Turds who claimed they had no replacement for OCare. Sorry guys, you were right all along.
This Party is truly useless.
Single payor here we come
FLASHBACK: RINO John McCain Campaigns on Repealing Obamacare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=iWfOnluLxF0
Whatever else I may say about the Dumb-o-crats, I’ll readily concede that the know how to stand unified when it comes to voting on major legislation and policy proposals.
The Republicans, on the other hand, can always be counted on to find a way to mess things up, even when they control the chamber. Between self-aggrandizing spotlight-seekers who claim the moral high ground (McCain), ideologically inflexible, self-anointed conservative “purists” (Paul) and predictably self-serving political opportunists (Collins & Murkowski), there are always a sufficient number of GOP Senators who are all too happy to let their vanity and inflated sense of self get in the way of actually accomplishing something positive — in this case, fixing a truly ill-conceived, Kafkaesque and destructive piece of legislation that has inflated premiums and deductibles to astronomical levels, decreased the availability of doctors and hospitals to participating insureds and generally represented everything that is wrong with apparatchik Dumb-o-crats’ statist pretensions and schemes.
IMO, most Democrats are ideologues… they Believe. In the GOP, there is a big mix of folks that just want influence, or maybe truly want to fix Government, or reform it.. but there are a bunch that just want to get elected and do the bidding of others and they have no ideology beyond that. They run as GOP because that’s the ticket to win, but they really aren’t that conservative or anything. There are VERY few on the Democrat side that mirror this.
To get elected a Democrat; in the last 40 years has meant you passed a ideology and purity test, and the last 10 years absolutely a identity-politics test.
The Right is just the odds and sods getting rolled by the Left or disagree with 1 or more of the 1,000 points that every good Leftist must believe.
Yes. The Democrats focus on process — unity — while the Republicans fight over substance/content and then engage in self-defeating “I just won’t vote” behavior ensuring the result they say they do not want.
There are plenty on the left who just want to get votes, but showing off belief in their big party of big brother is what gets them elected…those two goals just happen to align.
Meanwhile the party of dissent and limited government leads to more independent thinkers and less unity, and of course it has been corrupted by the same vote whoring aristocrats…but the GOP’s type just try to trot along the red/blue lines.
McConnell had no intention of allowing any repeal OR replacement of Obamacare at all. For that matter neither do McCain, Murkowski, Collins, Graham, or Cassidy. To do so would a) help the country, b) help President Trump, and c) overturn a Democrat program which Republicans are never allowed to do.
This is all Maskirova, or perhaps more accurately Taqqiya by the Republicans so they can try to convince us that while they lied to use in the past, that this time they really, Really, REALLY mean to do something if we re-elect them in 2018.
So Lindsey-CAIR is just Obama-care by another sissy name!
SNARK!
The fix? Legal challenge.. and have the Trump administration not defend it. Take a page from Obama’s book.. Kill it, with fire… in the court.
I like the way you’re thinking here, but what challenges to the law haven’t already been shot down by the courts?
It’s a very long complicated law. I’m sure there are hundreds of possibilities…. One that immediately comes to mind is the bill originated in the Senate and not House.
However, I’ll agree with Rand Paul on this one: Kenyancare is going to collapse soon. Let it collapse, then when it is OBVIOUS even to the mentally retarded that something else must be done, go for the free-market alternative.
Obamacare, Fence – makes no difference to him. Two-faced POS. With his ‘best friend’ Ted gone, he’s glommed on to Chuck & Nan. I’m not sure he & Lindsey are still going together.
What shame. Was once a guy I truly admired (and voted for).
The high school reference was intentional.
Leaving out the ‘a’ was not.
You have forgotten his many other accomplishments.
Blame the GOPe, not trump.
Perhaps a piecemeal approach would be more productive. Draft legislation that does nothing other than get rid of the individual mandate. A number of GOP senators might claim that the legislation doesn’t do enough to get rid of Obamacare, but they might pipe down if they realize that other features of Obamacare will be addressed in other bills.
One problem with “piecemeal” is that there are so few Republicans who really want to get rid of any part of Obamacare, that after they take out any one part, where are you going to get some Republican to try to take out any other.
What they will all do, if say they manage to change the punctuation of one sentence of text of Obamacare, is claim that they have “fixed” it and have kept their promise.
Single payer here we come…
Then we can have a 2-tiered medical system to go with our 2-tiered justice system.
Matching is nice.
The old wolf has not a scrap of wool to hide behind anymore. Still hard to believe he was honestly reelected.
The Governor of AZ needs to look into removing McCain for health reasons and the fact that he has an medical condition that can affect his already piss poor judgement.
He doesn’t work for the governor, and he can no more remove him — for any reason — than he can remove you.
“I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal,” the Arizona Republican said in a statement. “I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will effect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. Without a full CBO score, which won’t be available by the end of the month, we won’t have reliable answers to any of those questions.”
Hey, John, you had the past eight years to come up with a plan that would answer all the questions you have listed here today. Stop with the political bull crap. Your idealistic working with the Democrats is code for “Single Payer” health care for sell excrpt you politicians. You make me want to vomit.
Trump needs to make two moves against the ACA by executive order.
One, create a blanket exemption for every person and entity in the US except Congress, and instruct the IRS not to enforce the penalties or try to collect them. (IRS is a commission and has a commissioner, so executive authority is attenuated by that structure. But HHS is a cabinet level agency and he can certainly steer price in the right direction.)
Second, he should terminate the exemption for Congress and staffers as December 31. Then see if Congress, as the only ones left under the ACA’s strictures, is motivated to act.
I think that would work. If he wanted to do it, this would be a good way. But he doesn’t want to.
I just left angry messages to the two senators and the rep stating that they will be seeing support for other people unless they get McCain and others under control and concentrate on getting tax reform, health care reform, the budget, the wall and other matters resolved before any mention of a Dreamers bill get passed with their approval.
My mother came in legally, got her citizenship papers and NEVER taught her children her native languages. She was an AMERICAN, conservative of course since she was very aware of the evils of Hitler and the Soviet Union.
Her lack of teaching us her languages proved to be interesting – she was in ICU after crashing a few times and getting a pacemaker. The nurses asked if anyone knew Russian because another patient’s family was not around. I pointed to Mom, they wheeled the other lady into her room.
I think the entire staff was watching as the two ladies started laughing and singing and talking. No problem, except for the medical resident who had to explain why two ladies who almost died were hard to control. Russians and Latvians – who knew?
A good memory but one that is wasted when I think of that asshole – McCain.
Mary, I believe you are counting Murkowski as a yes and she is a maybe. Her governor opposes it because they – gasp – want more money.
The GOP governors, like Walker in Alaska, went for expanded Medicaid and now can’t survive without the federal dollars that came with it. That said it’s only guaranteed in the PPACA for 5 years. After that the states have to foot the bill themselves, which is why some Republican governors wouldn’t go for it. So senators from those states, like Murkowski, don’t want to vote for repeal.
Also, the pre-existing conditions coverage is another sticking point, especially for Collins.
In any case, PPACA is going to collapse, so the Senate for sure will have to do something. That’s when the rubber will meet the road.
Frankly McConnell should do away with the filibuster and screw the Dummycrats.
And to think I once voted for him — although he would probably have been better than Obama.
He should resign to attend to his health problems and let someone who will do what was promised take over.
This is yet another prime example why the 17th Amendment is 1) an incredibly BAD idea, 2) leads to a single individual holding up progress the American people DEMAND, and 3) needs to be REPEALED and return to the original model.
For some reason, McCain makes me think about Benedict Arnold who was a war hero before he was a traitor.
Senile and formerly just stupid.
The house and senate need to be stripped of all healthcare and then told they must buy an overpriced, limited and inferior insurance 100% from their own pocket or be forced to pay a fine.
Welcome to America.
How long has McCain been running this Country anyway?
Tried to work up some sympathy, but couldn’t. The sooner he’s gone the better it will be for the country.
As an AZ citizen and former intern I could not be more disappointed in him.
You can’t work with Dems on this. They have atrocious ideas. Recall McCain
Only you folks can do it. All we can do is wish you would.
Ducey could have him removed as well, I believe.
McCain can no longer discharge his duties. He is terminal, and his brain has been impacted by his condition.
Let’s do it, and start the removal petition.
Ducey could have him removed as well, I believe.
No, he cannot. Where on earth could you possibly have got the idea that a state governor can fire a US senator? Someone with so little understanding of basic civics should not comment on the topic.
Recall McCain
There is no such thing as recall. It wasn’t invented when the US constitution was written; it’s a “Progressive” era invention.
For keeping McCain in office for so long, Arizona needs to pay restitution to the rest of the country. Same with South Carolina and Lindsay Graham.
A maverick – immature, unpredictable, impulsive, irrational.
McCain (L-AZ) cannot get over being butthurt by Trump. After all the times he fought against conservatives he’ll finally show his true colors and switch to democrat.
(L = Liar)
The lesson learned during 2017 is that if you were expecting Republicans to save you from the disastrous policies of the Obama administration, you were gravely misinformed. It seems only Trump has the balls and the will to tackle those calamities. There are a few good ones in Congress but they are outnumbered by the RINOs/Dems.
John McCain, Mitch McConnell and a large stray dog walk into a bar.
Barman says: “Sorry, we don’t allow rats in here,”
McCain say: “It’s a dog.”
McConnells says: “And it’s not with us.”
The barman says: “What dog? I am talking to you two rats.”
In the winter while at the senate, McConnell, McCain and Schumer are talking, when the sergeant at arms walks up to McConnell and says: “There’s a pig outside, and it’s freezing. It’s trying to get inside the Senate building.”
“But it stinks!” McCain says.
Schumer says, “Don’t worry, he’ll get used to the odor.”