The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations

by John McCain

I planned to arrive in Washington right before the vote on a motion to allow the Senate to bring the health care bill up for debate and amendment. Leadership still hadn’t announced what replacement for Obamacare they would offer as an amendment to the underlying legislation passed by the House. They wouldn’t propose the aforementioned skinny repeal, which offered no replacement at all until after the vote on the motion. Democrats had been blocking consideration of the House bill on the floor, and hoped to kill the entire effort by defeating the motion to proceed. They needed three votes. Mine would not be one of them. I wouldn’t stop debate of the bill, but I wouldn’t vote for final passage, either, if it weren’t considerably improved in the process. I would ask for floor time after the vote to make the speech Salter and I had worked on during the flight from Arizona.