As things stand right now in the Senate deliberations on Obamacare repeal, the question for conservatives really comes down to this: Given that the Republican establishment has no intention of delivering on its promise to repeal Obamacare “root and branch” if the latest draft is, as Ted Cruz put it, “the best outcome possible as measured by lowering premiums to make health insurance more affordable,” should it be good enough for the rest of the conservative movement?

Our answer is yes, this is a first step toward the full repeal of Obamacare, and – given the weak-kneed Republican leadership on Capitol Hill – this is as close as we are going to get for the moment.

Senator Cruz understands something that few in the Republican establishment seem to grasp – if they don’t deliver lower health insurance premiums to the working families that elected Donald Trump President forget increasing their majority, they are going to be out on their ears.

So, for several weeks, we’ve been pushing CHQ readers to support the “Consumer Freedom Option” proposed by Senator Cruz and Senator Mike Lee.

Cruz and Lee proposed an amendment to the original McConnell bill that would allow insurers to provide health care plans that are not compliant with Obamacare’s intrusive and expensive mandates, provided they also offered an Obamacare compliant plan.

The bill unveiled Thursday included a re-calibrated version of that proposal that would allow people to purchase lower cost health insurance plans that cover three primary care visits a year and cap their out-of-pocket costs.

And that’s the whole point of the Obamacare repeal movement – lower the cost of insurance for working families.

The revised healthcare bill would also allow people to use health savings accounts toward their monthly insurance payments – something not allowed under the current law.

It would also allow small business associations to group their members into insurance purchasing groups.

Those are no brainers for any conservative health care insurance reform, but they required weeks of hard negotiating by Cruz and thousands of phone calls from grassroots conservatives to get the message through to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate’s establishment Republicans.

Of course, this won’t end the subsidies required to prop-up Obamacare, so establishment Republicans are also aiming to pump $70 billion into subsidies to help people pay for their premiums. To buy off establishment Senators like Ohio’s Rob Portman and West Virginia’s Shelly Moore Capito McConnell has also promised another $45 billion to tackle the ongoing opioid crisis.

Continuing even part of the subsidies and the vast wealth transfer of Obamacare sticks in the craw of most conservatives, but it may be the price of getting us steps closer to restoring a free market in health insurance.

"This bill is not a total repeal, I would prefer a total repeal," Senator Cruz said, and so would we.

"We unfortunately don't have the votes. The conference is not united on that. And so my effort is to achieve the best outcome possible as measured by lowering premiums to make health insurance more affordable," Cruz concluded with undeniable logic.

On that basis, we are inclined to agree with Senator Cruz, who said, "I think this new bill represents a substantial improvement over the previous version," according to the Texas Tribune’s Livingstone and Evans.

Cruz spent Wednesday in meetings and negotiations for the legislation rather than sitting in on the closely-watched Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings of FBI director nominee Christopher Wray.

Politico reports that it is not yet clear whether the inclusion of Cruz's proposal will be enough for some of his conservative Senate colleagues, such as Senator Rand Paul, but we hope it will earn Senator Paul’s support.

Cruz said he was encouraged that the updated Senate bill focuses on lowering consumers' premiums, both through his amendment and the proposal to let people use pre-tax money to pay for their insurance premiums.

“We’re making serious progress towards coming together and unifying our conference and getting a bill that can command the support of at least 50 senators,” he said on Arizona’s KFYI radio Thursday morning.

Plus, there’s some good news hidden in the bill that most of the media seems to be ignoring, but Democrats have already figured out: Once consumers have choices, even the narrow ones provided in the bill, they are going to flee Obamacare by the millions and that will hasten the death spiral that is giving urgency to the existing legislation.

Ultimately, the answer to repealing Obamacare and restoring a free market in health insurance is to be found in only one place: The Republican primary elections. Unless and until we replace the weak-kneed Republican leadership of Mitch McConnell, and the RINOs who keep electing him Majority Leader, with principled limit government constitutional conservatives like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee Obamacare is going to have to be repealed one failing provision at a time.