Just a few weeks ago, Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress were talking about how Obamacare’s insurance markets were floundering, and how insurance companies were fleeing while prices were spiraling out of control.

The failure of those markets, they argued, was the reason Obamacare should be repealed.

Now, Republican leaders are considering a legislative effort to roll back major provisions of the health law, but the plan they’re considering would keep the current system in place for at least two and possibly three more years.

The nickname for the plan is repeal and delay, and the assumption underlying it is that the current system will be sustainable for as long as it takes Congress to pass and the White House to install a new health plan.

The plan might be better described as “zombification.” It is not at all clear that Republicans can easily time the expiration date of the Obamacare markets. Insurance experts say the resulting zombie market — not dead, but not alive either — would suffer from many of the maladies of the existing system, and quite a few more. The result on the books might look like the status quo, but millions of Americans could lose their insurance and others could pay much higher prices to keep their coverage.