Photo: john mccain
A lot of Americans owe this man an apology.
By Merethe Najjar — Written on Jul 28, 2017
In an absolutely shocking and stunning turn of events last night, John McCain surprised Americans across the country by voting “no” on the GOP’s “Skinny Repeal” bill of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The bill, which has been kept tightly under wraps by those involved, was a last ditch effort by Donald Trump and his team to get rid of some aspects of the ACA — like individual and employer mandates — that Republicans have railed against for years.
McCain, who less than two weeks ago underwent surgery to have a blood clot removed, also received a devastating diagnosis of aggressive brain cancer. Despite his illness, he still made it to Washington for the Tuesday vote just six days after going under the knife.
And later that morning, facing barrage of criticism that he was headed back to Washington to vote to kill Americans, McCain astonished people all over the country when he voted “yes” in the hopes of opening the legislation up for a full debate that would allow changes to the health-care bill.
McCain's vote, however, ultimately allowed for Republicans to push the ACA repeal forward and prompted people around the world to vilify him and turned the senator and war hero into one of the most hated people in America — at least temporarily, that is — and to be applauded by the one person most willing to sacrifice the health and welfare of the citizens of this country.
But despite McCain’s initial vote “yes” to move forward with the bill, and despite the rallying wave of anger against him, once he made his second vote — the actual vote against the decision to repeal the ACA — many of those same people who'd just attacked him were forced to bite their tongues. They were forced to consider the fact that maybe McCain hadn’t deserved all the vitriol and hate that they'd given him.
And give it to him they absolutely did.
The week has been awash in people responding angrily to McCain's "hypocritical move" to vote yes on the bill when he told many people that he would vote the opposite.
"McCain will die with this dishonor. Rather than do the right thing, he did the right-wing thing," wrote Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College in a piece on The Huffington Post following the vote. "Whatever else he’s accomplished in his political career, this will be his legacy."
"John McCain leaves government-funded sick bed in order to deny other sick people government-funded sick beds," wrote an anonymous internet user.
So just what exactly happened, and why did Americans go from wishing a man dead and spitting on his name to finding themselves desperately in need of owing him an apology?
“We’re getting nothing done, my friends,” said McCain in a now infamous 15-minute speech on Tuesday following his cheer-filled return to the capital. “Let's trust each other. Let's return to regular order. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle… I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered.”
But in light of his adamant speech against the bill, he did, in fact, vote to push it forward and open the Skinny Repeal for debate. But given the outcome on the early morning Friday vote, it appears that many people speaking against him were very wrong in their decision to rebuke him.
As it turns out, McCain was never interested in toeing the party line. The "Maverick" was most interested in an honest and open dialogue about health care in America.
“I will not vote for the bill as it is today. It’s a shell of a bill. We all know that," he concluded in his Tuesday speech. And he was certainly a man of his word. And suddenly, millions of Americans realized that they had perhaps jumped the gun and allowed for their anger and offense to get in the way of patience and common sense. And some of his most vehement attackers came back just this morning, hat in hands, to apologize for what they said... sort of.
After his Tuesday vote, many senators on the floor actually tried to sway the POW survivor and 30-year politician one way or another on their late night vote on the actual repeal, including Vice President Mike Pence.
Those trying to get him to vote "no" on the final bill included both senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who have been adamantly opposed to the bill since its inception and have not quailed once in light of threats, arguments, and disgusting and downright violent words from other politicians.
But McCain did not need to hear from other politicians, and in fact told reporters to "Watch the show" as he went in to vote, leaving the world watching with uncertainty.
Would he live up to his name as the "Maverick?" Or would he give in to pressure from his party and even the words from the second-highest seat of power in this country?
It would seem that the vote did not go as expected — but if we as a people had listened to John McCain's impassioned speech on Tuesday, we would have understood that what he was trying to do was not strip health care from his Arizonian constituents and millions of other people around the country; he was trying to get both Republicans and Democrats to stop working their own sides and to join together in order to create something better.
And after learning that the "Skinny Repeal" was not a good replacement and carried nothing of value for the people around America likely drawing mustaches and devil horns on all of his pictures in disgust, he voted exactly as he said he would: against it.
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So today, America, we owe John McCain an apology.
Because of all the Republicans who were there on Friday, only three of them voted against the Skinny Repeal. And it was McCain's vote that absolutely killed the bill in a wonderful Julius Caesar-style thumbs down that literally left the room gasping and applauding as the proverbial lions in the ring leapt for the bill's throat.
So if you woke up today and still have health care coverage, you can thank Senator John McCain for that.
Now, as he returns home to Arizona to begin his own government-funding treatment for cancer, we need to do what he suggested to begin with and work together to get a system in place that helps all people in this country.
There is no reason that in 2017 in the United States of America that any citizen should be suffering and not know if going to the doctor will bankrupt them.