McCain to return for crucial health vote

WASHINGTON — John McCain will make a dramatic return to the Senate for a make-or-break vote on Republican health care legislation Tuesday just days after getting diagnosed with brain cancer, giving an emotional and arithmetical boost to his party’s reeling effort to repeal Obamacare.

The decision by the 80year-old senator to travel to Washington from his Arizona home was announced by his office in a brief press release late Monday night. It comes with the GOP bill to erase and replace President Barack Obama’s law on the brink as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushes toward a pivotal vote Tuesday, prodded by an impatient and frustrated President Donald Trump.

“Senator McCain looks forward to returning to the United States Senate tomorrow to continue working on important legislation, including health care reform, the National Defense Authorization Act, and new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea,” his office said.

It was the latest head-spinning turn for legislation that’s survived several neardeath experiences in recent week. Now, it seems it could clear a critical hurdle Tuesday, a vote on beginning debate on a measure Republicans hope will let them deliver on seven years of promises tear down Obama’s statute.

McCain’s 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.