Obamacare lives

Today is a day to be embarrassed to be a Republican, for Obamacare has survived every effort to repeal and replace it with the defection of Senator McCain in the last-ditch effort to keep the effort alive in the final vote on “skinny repeal” after midnight this morning. Robert Pear and Thomas Kaplan report the story for the New York Times here.

The defeat of Obamacare repeal efforts in the Senate is, as the cliche has it and as seems particularly apt in this context, a bitter pill to swallow. The defections of John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins sealed the defeat.

Senator McCain’s defection was in a sense the most surprising, but perhaps should have been anticipated. It seems to me that he has never been happier than on the occasions when he is stabbing Republicans in the back, as here, or promoting profoundly bad public policy, as in the McCain-Feingold legislation.

Senator McCain was reelected to office in 2016. He ran against Obamacare in the course of his campaign. He used his opponent’s support of Obamacare in the House against her (video below). On my scale of political cynicism, I rate this one a Wow.

Senator McCain commented after the fact in the Tweet below. Rated Wow.

Senator McCain speaks at length in the video included with the pinned Tweet below. Rated Wow.

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