In the early hours of Friday morning, John McCain again put his country first.

The Arizona Republican bucked his party in casting the deciding vote against the so-called skinny repeal of Obamacare. McCain’s vote — along with those of fellow Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — prevented bad legislation, legislation that exacerbated the problems with Obamacare — from potentially becoming law.

Many of the 49 Republicans who voted for the bill knew the skinny repeal was bad law — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it a disaster and a fraud — but still cast ballots in favor of it in an attempt to get it to conference committee, where the bill could be overhauled by Republicans in the House and Senate.

The problem is House Republicans, desperate for a legislative victory, could have approved the skinny bill as is, and then, again using Graham’s words, “the dumbest thing in history” would be the health care law of the land.

Republicans found themselves in this predicament because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used a parliamentary procedure to try to bypass Democrats in getting the skinny repeal passed. McConnell framed skinny repeal as budget reconciliation. Normally, Senate approval requires 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, but budget reconciliations can be approved with a simple majority. That meant McConnell didn’t need a single Democratic vote to move the legislation forward, so long as 50 of the 52 Republicans toed the line.

This was why McCain, diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer last week, had flown back to Washington from Arizona. With Collins and Murkowski set to vote no, Republicans were counting on him to save the day on health care.

But McCain, a Vietnam war hero with a well-earned reputation as a political maverick, proved his independent mindedness once again. He correctly noted that Democrats were wrong to force through Obamacare in 2009 without any Republican support. And, he said, it would be equally wrong for Republicans to make the same mistake.

“We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the recommendations of the nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people,” McCain said in a statement released after his vote. “We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.”

McCain has given his colleagues an opportunity to fix Obamacare the right way. The opportunity to write legislation that 60 senators can support. The opportunity to reach across the aisle and force Democrats to abandon their obstruction-at-all costs strategy. The opportunity to work together, compromise and write a truly bipartisan health care bill.

John McCain made quite the statement Friday. His colleagues would be wise to heed his words.