The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. The author works for the podcast.

(CNN) Republicans in Congress ultimately will opt to fix elements of Obamacare and claim victory, despite pressures to fully dismantle the law, says a leading GOP voice on health care.

Mike Leavitt, the former governor of Utah and Health and Human Services secretary under President George W. Bush, predicts that the realities of health care economics will constrain the party's ability to completely abandon the Affordable Care Act.

"The Republicans dined out for three elections in a row on the idea of 'repeal and replace,' " Leavitt told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN. "And I think it's to be expected that there will be a bill that will be titled 'Repeal and Replace,' and that's probably about the only thing we know with certainty."

Leavitt says the desire to retain popular elements of the Affordable Care Act and avoid negative impacts of precipitously unwinding the law will dictate more modest changes.

"There will be some new things, but for the most part it's going to be finding ways to make more functional that which we had before the ACA or that we have after," Leavitt said. "And then we'll have a fight about what actually happened and who deserves the credit."

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