Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he continues to favor working across the aisle on health care, because he cares about a bipartisan approach to the topic. | John Shinkle/POLITICO McCain: I’m not there yet on latest Obamacare repeal bill

Sen. John McCain said Monday that he's not yet on board with his party's latest Obamacare repeal bill, airing some of the same objections that he cited when killing the last GOP push to ax the health care law.

"I am not supportive of the bill yet," McCain told reporters, adding that he and fellow Republicans would "talk more about it" as the clock ticks closer to the Sept. 30 deadline for the GOP to repeal Obamacare with a simple majority vote in the Senate.


The Arizona Republican reiterated his previous insistence on "the regular order" for any Obamacare repeal bill, the central theme of the floor speech he delivered in July before dealing a fatal blow to the GOP's repeal efforts.

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a cosponsor of the newest Obamacare repeal bill, plans to hold a hearing on its substance next week in the panel that he chairs.

But Johnson's committee does not have primary jurisdiction over health care, making a formal markup of the bill impossible. And McCain suggested that Johnson's efforts to examine the legislation might not be enough to satisfy him.

"Wonderful, wonderful," McCain said of Johnson's plans. "Let's have a markup of the bill with amendments and debates and report it to the floor."

McCain also said that the Congressional Budget Office's announcement Monday that it would be unable to conduct a full-scale analysis of the bill's impacts on insurance coverage and premiums "affects my view somewhat, because I'd like to have the estimate."

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And while Republicans look for a path to push through Obamacare repeal with 50 votes rather than the 60 typically needed in the Senate, McCain said he continues to favor working across the aisle on health care.

"It's not so much 60 votes that I care about," McCain said. "It's a bipartisan approach to the issue — that's what I mostly care about."