John McCain Surrenders the Party.

His self-preferred nickname was being bandied about this morning by all of the smug and self-satisfied talking heads who are glad to see the sinking ship that is the Affordable Care Act still taking on water, but chugging out into the great unknown.

You know the one -- the nickname that makes Sen. McCain seem like a rugged individualist Western hero:  it was the name of that bad movie some decades back starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson.

The true nickname that Sen. McCain earned last night, however, is one that the talking heads dared not speak this morning:  R.I.N.O.  = Republican in Name Only.  As his party members one by one put aside their individual differences and ill feelings toward the president, perhaps -- Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson -- Sen. McCain could not stand and deliver on behalf of his party.

Where the Democratic senators provided a solid front in passing Obamacare on Christmas Eve 2009, inspired by the memory of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who passed earlier that summer from the illness now afflicting Sen. McCain -- the Republican chose to defy his party. He could not simply be one of them, seeking after 7 years to come together and at least try to reverse the course of the sinking ship...

He had to be dramatic too -- like a Roman emperor giving the thumbs up, or thumbs down in deciding who would live, and who would die.  Sen. McCain overrode the wishes of his party, who wanted nothing more from the Skinny Repeal bill than to balance out the partisan move pulled by the Dems not so long ago in passing the Affordable Health Act.

Instead, like a child searching for unicorns in Washington DC, Sen. McCain called for the Congress to come together, to work together to find a solution that would satisfy senators from both parties... As if. 

We will remember John McCain, mostly, for being an elder Congressmen in the Do-Nothing legislatures -- gung-ho for war, but not very good at providing for the domestic needs of the country.  Sen. McCain -- like Senators Schumer, Pelosi, Reed, and even Boehner -- talked a good game, and enjoyed the good life in DC, but in the end, none of them were able to lead the country, and they all simply continued to benefit by the swamp's status quo, which sees rising levels of income inequality and rewards non-initiative.

John McCain will be remembered as the son of a Somebody, who parlayed his wartime service in a lost-cause war into a government career.  He served in an aging state, and never was very good at looking ahead and reading the future.

He chose Sarah Palin, a neophyte Alaskan governor, as the best choice for his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign against the junior senator from Illinois.  The Republican ticket lost the electoral college 173 to 365, taking 46 percent of the popular vote to the Democrats' 53 percent.

John McCain returned to Congress after his loss, where he had served during one of the worst financial crises in the nation, alongside fellow Dems like Barney Frank, and the aforementioned Sen. Kennedy.  John McCain contributed to the nation's costs too -- he never met a war he did not like.

If you watch the clips from last night, you will see Sen. McCain denied his final moment of RINO glory, when Sen. Chuck Schumer -- smart about optics, if nothing else -- waved off his own party members from the cheer in the chambers beginning to rise when they realized Sen. McCain would be a third "no" vote, and the sinking ship would keep on chugging along.

I do not think the Republicans -- who came together briefly last night in a solid show of unity -- would be wise to keep shoveling subsidy cash into the health insurance industry furnaces, so that the leaking ship will continue to struggle along.  In one state, there are counties with no individual insurance marketplace,  In many others, there is only once insurance company offering product that all Americans are mandated to purchase.

Those individuals who can, will jump off the sinking ship and do their best to survive and go on to use their money to build a solid financial future.  Those individuas who cannot will likely see their own health insurance premiums rise, as they sacrifice more and more of their take-home money to keep covered.

Eventually, the ACA sink will ship, as our current president/businessman is effectively predicting.

No one likes to see "every man for himself" situations of life and death, but with the government seemingly stuck on bailing out the medical industry fat-cats with guaranteed government dollars, it will come to that.  Sen. McCain knows he will not be around to see those days.  He stepped outside into the dark last night, stung perhaps by a week-long recess called after his lithe senatorial colleague Rand Paul effectively cock-blocked him, by refusing McCain a vote on the defense bill that was anticipated to come after the Skinny Bill repeal.  Some say, McCain returned to Washington, in sickness, just for that one...

John McCain wasn't a Maverick so much as a man who never learned to be a team player.  He chose Drama!, and wanted so badly to provide the winning score he  helped the other team move the ball over his own team's goal line.  The Republicans lost and the Democrats won last night.  John McCain thought he won too -- the media was awarding him trophies today, and surely they will all say good things when he is gone from Washington, for good...
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*  Some are saying President Trump is doomed, with the media absolutely gleeful at this latest loss, and chastising the president's inner circle for using words never before heard in DC's polite company.  But it is only Year One for this coach. He is still assembling his team...

 Year One is always a rebuilding year, while the leader evaluates the skills of the players he has inherited, learns who works well together, who earns his paycheck and who coasts (Paul Ryan -- we're looking at you...), and who puts the team before individual glory.

ADDED:  In other news, Charlie Gard -- the British baby boy whose parents were denied the right (months ago, when he might have had a fighting chance) to decide his medical care or even bring him home for comfort -- died today in goverment care.

Hope that our own sinking ship does not seek out any port in a storm...

There is a reason Americans do not choose socialized medicine here.