MCCAIN WILL RETURN TO SENATE FOR VOTE ON HEALTHCARE
WASHINGTON— John McCain will make a dramatic return to the Senate for a makeorbreak vote on GOP health care legislation Tuesday, just days after getting diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The decision by the 80- year- old senator to travel to Washington fromhis Arizona home was announced by his office in a brief press release late Monday night. It comes with the GOP health care bill to repeal and replace “Obamacare” on the brink as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushes toward a pivotal vote Tuesday prodded by an impatient and frustrated President Donald Trump.
It was the latest head- spinning turn of events for health legislation that’s survived several near- death experiences in recent weeks, yet could make it past a critical hurdle Tuesday with Republicans determined to make good on seven years of promises to get rid of former President Barack Obama’s law.
The former GOP presidential nominee’s office announced last week that McCain has glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer.
His startling decision to return suggests McConnell believes Tuesday’s vote will be successful— with McCain’s vote.
McConnell, R- Ky., said he’s “made a commitment to the people I represent” to undo Obama’s health care overhaul, in what seemed a pointed reminder to Republican senators that they’ve made the same vow.
At the White House, Trump lambasted Democrats who helped enact the 2010 health care law and uniformly oppose the GOP attempt to scrap and rewrite it.
“They run out and say, ‘ Death, death, death,’ ” Trump said, with a backdrop of families that he said have encountered problems getting affordable, reliable medical coverage because of Obama’s statute. “Well, Obamacare is death. That’s the one that’s death.”
Some Democrats have said the GOP repeal effort would lead to death for patients who lose coverage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said various versions of the legislation would mean more than 20 million Americans would become uninsured by 2026.
But Trump focused many of his remarks on GOP senators.
“For Senate Republicans, this is their chance to keep their promise. Over and over again, they said, ‘ Repeal and replace, repeal and replace.’ But they can now keep their promise,” Trump said.