Following the Senate's vote on Tuesday to proceed with debate on a measure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who had just returned to the Senate following a diagnosis of glioblastoma, addressed his colleagues. The following are excerpts from his remarks.
"When I hear the Senate referred to as the world's greatest deliberative body, I'm not sure we can claim that distinction with a straight face today ... Our deliberations can still be important and useful. But I think we'd all agree, they haven't been overburdened by greatness lately. Like now, they aren't producing much for the American people. Both sides have let this happen."
"I hope we can again rely on humility on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other, learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us. Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio, television and Internet. To hell with them. They don't want anything done for the public good."
"Our health care insurance system is a mess. We all know it -- those who support Obamacare and those who oppose it. Something has to be done ... All we've managed to do is make more popular a policy that wasn't very popular when we started trying to get rid of it."
"I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered. I will not vote for this bill as it is today. It's a shell of a bill right now."
"I know many of you will have to see the bill change ... We try to do this by coming up with a proposal behind closed doors in consultation with the administration, then springing it on skeptical members, trying to convince them that it's better than nothing ... I don't think that's going to work in the end, and it probably shouldn't."
"Why don't we try the old way of legislating in the Senate? If this [current] process ends in failure, which seems likely, then let's return to regular order. Let the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ... hold hearings, try to report a bill out of committee with contributions from both sides ... Let's see if we can pass something that will be imperfect, full of compromises, and not very pleasing to implacable [people on either] side but that might provide workable solutions [to problems] Americans are struggling with today. What have we to lose by trying to work together to find those solutions? We're not getting much done apart."