Exclusive—Rick Santorum on John McCain’s Opposition to Graham-Cassidy: ‘We Will Get This to the Finish Line’

Rick Santorum Joe RaedleGetty
Joe Raedle/Getty

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he remains optimistic about Graham-Cassidy’s chances of passing through the Senate, even with Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) opposition to the Obamacare repeal bill. Santorum said, “We will get this to the finish line.”

Sen. McCain said in a statement on Friday, “I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal.” McCain claims that he wants to have “regular order” with committee hearings and markups on the Obamacare repeal bill, even though the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on the Graham-Cassidy bill on Monday.

This is the second time McCain saved Obamacare from repeal in the Senate. He first tanked Obamacare in August when he and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against the “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill. The measure failed by one vote.

Santorum remains optimistic about Graham-Cassidy’s chances of passing through the Senate. Santorum told Breitbart News, “Our hope is that we’re still working on this, we’re still finalizing it getting all the t’s crossed and nobody has seen the final draft of the bill yet. We’re still going to work through this and we will get this to the finish line. Hopefully when Sen. McCain gets back into town he will take a look at it. We’re having a hearing and working to get the information out to make this work.”

Former Sen. Santorum said that they will continue to work on getting this bill to pass through the Senate, despite McCain’s opposition. Santorum explained:

Look, this is a viable idea, this is a viable approach that will solve America’s healthcare problems. We have a short window because of reconciliation, the House and Senate leadership took a different path that turned out to not be viable. John McCain has been clear that he likes this concept, he just doesn’t like the way it’s being done and it’s not our fault. Sen. Graham and Sen. Cassidy, the Freedom Caucus, we were pushing this idea out for a while in spite of the Republican leadership. Having said that, we’re not done not we have up until next week to work on this bill and we’re going to work to refine this bill. We’re go into have that hearing on Monday and this is all part of the process. No one has voted no until they actually cast their vote. John McCain switched his vote to defeat the last health care bill maybe he will switch this bill to pass this bill, you never know.

Santorum told Breitbart News that there remains a lot of grassroots support for the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill. Santorum said, “I’m feeling very good about the reaction and the response that the bill has gotten, there’s a lot of support out there in the grassroots to repeal and replace Obamacare. There’s a whole another year between now and the next election. If we can get it done next week, we will get it done next week. If we can’t get it done next week, we will continue after that.”

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