In Praise of Sen. John McCain. But .............

Sen. McCain's great speech  to
Congress is overshadowed by
his own health , his vote &
a prevailing double standard
in healthcare .

(1)>>I honestly have to Praise Senator John McCain . I not what you think why , but his speech to Congress was along time coming . Though there is much to be critical .McCain's speech was important because it reminded people of the job they are supposed to be doing. McCain, who was recently and tragically diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, and who returned to DC explicitly to help save the GOP healthcare bill.  Unfortunately, it will change little in the way the Senate approaches legislation given that McConnell has continuously ignored regular order for years and is unlikely to change. The fact that McCain, just hours later, voted yes on the full bill with several amendments included shows that he is still playing partisan politics and undermines his credibility.  McCain  said it right : " WERE GETTING NOTHING DONE !" .  Eight years , even with PRESIDENT Obama , we have  had a purposely stalled Congress .  (2)>>McCain brings this to mind :

"And right now they aren’t producing much for the American people.Both sides have let this happen. Let’s leave the history of who shot first to the historians. I suspect they’ll find we all conspired in our decline — either by deliberate actions or neglect. We’ve all played some role in it. Certainly I have. Sometimes, I’ve let my passion rule my reason. Sometimes, I made it harder to find common ground because of something harsh I said to a colleague. Sometimes, I wanted to win more for the sake of winning than to achieve a contested policy.Incremental progress, compromises that each side criticize but also accept, just plain muddling through to chip away at problems and keep our enemies from doing their worst isn’t glamorous or exciting. It doesn’t feel like a political triumph. But it’s usually the most we can expect from our system of government, operating in a country as diverse and quarrelsome and free as ours."

And he added this stunning statement :

"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. That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires.We’re getting nothing done. All we’ve really done this year is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Our healthcare insurance system is a mess. We all know it, those who support Obamacare and those who oppose it. Something has to be done." 

Senator McCain thank you for such a speech . But also thank you for not voting for the"Replacement bill"  . Though you voted "yes". McCain didn’t explain why he had just cast the deciding vote to let McConnell forge ahead with this reprehensible and ill-fated process. But later in the speech he suggested that he wants the Senate to return to normalcy after taking a stab at destroying Obamacare the quick and dirty way. “Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act,” he said. “If this process ends in failure, which seem likely, then let’s return to regular order.This sparked confusion and derision from those opposed to seeing millions lose their health coverage. But McCain was crystal clear on one point: “I. Will. Not. Vote. For. This. Bill. As. It. Is. Today,” he said, giving each word emphasis. To put it another way, faced with a rare opportunity to make a real tangible difference, he risked traveling amid failing health to make possible the very thing he decried.
Congress has their own great healthcare plan ...
Senator McCain  was   diagnosed with a primary glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, this falls under a "pre-existing condition ".  BUT the Republican party  party needs to understand that its policies treat the lives of people like the senator much differently from less fortunate American citizens. The Senator has great healthcare paid by taxpayer dollars . Basically its a government run "single payer system" for the elite More damningly, he voted yes to take away healthcare from millions of Americans – including an untold number of other cancer patients – even as he continues to access benefits of the quality care afforded him as a senator, care subsidized by American taxpayers.Never mind that at this point in time Republicans have little idea what the bill they would replace Obamacare with will contain. Never mind that we have arrived at this point through a secretive process devoid of public hearings, or even that Republicans would have the healthcare of millions of American women dreamed up entirely by men.  As Vox’s Dylan Scott explained, nothing less than a health emergency has thrown the GOP’s health reform plan into disarray.The craniotomy sounds like an emergency surgery (though McCain’s office would not confirm that). Obamacare required insurance plans sold in the individual market, the fully insured small-group market, and through Medicaid to cover a list of 10 “essential health benefits”, including emergency healthcare. The Better Care Act would allow health insurers to once again sell skimpier insurance plans that might not include such comprehensive benefits. Life-saving surgeries like these would also be out of reach for more people if the GOP plan were to pass, since it’s expected to leave millions more Americans without insurance compared to Obamacare.To find out just how much the procedure would cost someone without insurance, we looked to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which publishes Medicare payments for more than 3,000 hospitals for inpatient procedures. We decided to go with the Medicare rate, since this is often used as a benchmark by experts for the cost of a procedure and it’s what the government considers reasonable to pay for a service.That means that if McCain happened to be one of his uninsured or under-insured constituents, and not a Senator with his healthcare subsidized by American taxpayers, he might have had to shell out some $76,000 for his surgery — more than the average annual household income in America.


NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>I honestly have to Praise Senator John McCain . There are many reasons to respect McCain, a former prisoner of war who endured torture in the five and a half years he spent captive in North Vietnam, and has campaigned against torture by the US. His 2008 campaign against Barack Obama now looks like the very model of civility in the wake of Trump.  (2)>>McCain brings this to mind :  see this URL for Complete Sen. McCain speech https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/25/were-getting-nothing-done-john-mccains-no-holds-barred-lecture-to-the-senate-annotated/?utm_term=.8be271ceee4d  .