President Trump and Republican lawmakers have never been able to explain how they would improve on the Affordable Care Act, which they’ve promised to quickly repeal and replace with something better. Now, it’s increasingly evident that they have no workable plan and might never come up with one.

Congress blew past a self-imposed Jan. 27 deadline to introduce legislation to end the health law. Mr. Trump told Fox News in an interview that ran Sunday that a replacement for the health law might not be ready until next year. Meanwhile, Republican senators like Lamar Alexander and Orrin Hatch have started talking about “repairing” the A.C.A., or Obamacare, rather than removing it root-and-branch. And while House Speaker Paul Ryan still insists that Congress will repeal and replace it this year, his wishful statements are clearly meant in large measure just to placate the burn-it-all-down wing of his caucus.

After campaigning for years against the health care law, Republicans seem to be realizing that it will be incredibly difficult to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise of providing a program that is better, cheaper and covers more people.

The law has extended health insurance to more than 22 million Americans. Plenty of them are calling lawmakers, showing up at town halls and marching in the streets demanding that Obamacare be preserved. Public support for it has never been higher, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Another poll, by the Pew Research Center, found that 60 percent of Americans say the government should make sure that everybody has health coverage.