By Elana Shor
...McCain waved spiritedly (click here) to a throng of reporters as he entered the chamber he’s called home for 30 years, served as the crucial 50th vote to proceed to a repeal debate, and then delivered a passionate speech undercutting the “shell of a bill” he had just agreed to take up.
“Our health care insurance system is a mess,” McCain said on the floor, adding of Obamacare: “We Republicans have looked for a way to end it and replace it with something else without paying a terrible political price. We haven’t found it yet, and I’m not sure we will. 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.”...
...McCain said he plans to remain in the Senate in order to manage floor consideration of the annual defense authorization bill, part of his duties as Armed Services chairman, before returning to Arizona for further treatment of his glioblastoma — the same type of tumor that killed his friend, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).
"I have every intention of returning here and giving many of you cause to regret all the nice things you said about me," he said....
