Senator John McCain announced that he will yet again vote against an effort to repeal or at least mitigate some of the worst features of Obamacare.  The current effort is the Graham-Cassidy bill, which is widely understood to be a quite reasonable albeit modest improvement to our present disastrous medical insurance system.

McCain offers no substantive disagreement with the proposal, which is co-sponsored by his longtime friend, Lindsey Graham.  His objection is that the bill is not bipartisan.  "I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal.  I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried[.]"

It is worth reminding the senator of his previous effort to work with Democrats to solve a serious national problem.  In 2008, then-presidential candidate McCain received word of the serious financial meltdown caused by the collapse of the housing bubble.  McCain suspended his campaign and flew back to Washington to immediately work with his counterparts on a united effort to deal with the problem.  The Democrats' response?  They laughed at him.  He was ridiculed in the national press for being so naive.  Frankly, the word "naive" is an understatement.

Democrats had no incentive to do anything.  Today Democrats have no incentive to help Republicans in any way.  Passing a partial reform of Obamacare might provide the leverage to bring about some sort of bipartisan approach.  Thanks to John McCain, we'll never know.

Senator McCain has shown great willpower during his career.  He is also a pretty bright guy.  Let's hope he relaxes his will enough to think through the consequences of his action.  He has shown the capacity to learn.  Let's all hope he can learn from his own experience.

From this point forward, the definition of the word "naive" will include a picture of John McCain.  There is  evidence that Democrats will not work in bipartisan way to correct the serious deficiencies in Obamacare or on any serious policy problem.  Starting with the 2008 election, there is substantial evidence that Democrats will not work in a bipartisan way on even the most serious issues.