McCain again calls for bipartisan solution to Obamacare replacement

PHOENIX — U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has wasted little time in his return from a brain cancer diagnosis, calling twice this week for a bipartisan solution that would replace Obamacare.

At a joint press conference Thursday, McCain said Republicans should not use their slim simple majority to push a health care bill through Congress, because that same action by the Democrats enraged the GOP years ago.

“I believe that one of the major problems with Obamacare is that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats without a single Republican vote,” he said. “I believe we shouldn’t make that mistake again.”

McCain’s Thursday call for bipartisanship echoed his speech earlier this week, his first since returning to the Senate.

The longtime senator said the Democrats’ decision to push Obamacare through was so divisive that it still splits the parties to this day. However, he called for both parties to rise above the divide.

“When we passed Obamacare in 2009, it split us,” he said, “It split us dramatically and it split us for years. It’s time we sat down together and came up with a piece of legislation that addresses this issue.”

McCain said, without bipartisanship, there is little chance health care reform moves ahead and he feared the action may die should Congress take its August recess.

“We’ve got to have Republicans and Democrats sit down together and come up with a bill that gets a majority in both houses,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to see this continuous deadlock.”

He said the Republican Party has solutions to some of Obamacare’s problems, but they need to be discussed and debated.

“Obamacare is a failure. It needs to be fixed,” he said. “We have fixes, but it’s got to be done in the normal process.”

McCain was speaking at a press conference with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson. All said they could not support the Senate’s latest effort at health care reform, the so called “skinny repeal,” because it would wreak havoc on health insurance markets.

McCain said he would not vote for any Senate health care plan that did not include three Medicaid-related amendments proposed by Gov. Doug Ducey.

“If it satisfies the governor, then I’m satisfied,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.