U.S. Senator John McCain said on Friday he opposes the latest Republican bill to dismantle Obamacare, dealing the measure what could be a fatal blow given the party's slim Senate majority.
With several other Republicans still undecided on the measure, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week he intended to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote next week, though he did not promise to do so.
A vote would set the stage for another dramatic Capitol Hill decision on the 2010 law that brought health insurance to millions of Americans and became former Democratic President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.
For seven years, Republicans have hammered Obamacare as an unwarranted government intrusion into American healthcare. President Donald Trump made repealing Obamacare one of his top campaign promises in 2016. Democrats have fiercely defended it.
The announcement by McCain, a Republican who has often been at odds with Trump and who cast a crucial "no" vote in July that helped defeat an earlier Republican repeal bill, had the potential to up-end McConnell's plans. McConnell's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Republicans have only a narrow Senate majority and cannot afford to lose many votes on the bill. They are also on a tight timetable.
McConnell has been trying to schedule a vote on the bill by Sept. 30, the last day on which the bill could pass with only a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate. A vote taken any later than that would have to garner at least 60 votes for passage.
Weeks after the humiliating defeat in July, when the Obamacare repeal fight seemed to be over, the current bill was introduced by Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain's, and seemed to gain momentum.
McCain Weighs In
But McCain on Friday laid out his opposition in a statement: "I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal." He said he took no pleasure in announcing his opposition and noted that the bill's authors "are my dear friends."