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Sometimes you almost have to feel sorry for Mitt Romney. He has one great achievement in life: the Massachusetts health reform, which acted as a template for the Affordable Care Act. If he were a member of a sane political party, he’d be boasting about that record. But he wanted to be president, which meant having to accommodate himself to his party; and in Iowa, 81 percent of Republicans say that Ben Carson’s statement that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery makes him more attractive as a candidate. So he has to trash the best thing he’s done.

Sometimes, it turns out, he can’t maintain the facade. The other day he took credit for setting the stage for Obamacare. Then he tried desperately to walk it back, claiming that Obamacare has failed — which is literally and figuratively the party line.

Which raises the question, if this is a failure, what would policy success look like?

Obamacare has led to a rapid drop in the number of uninsured, especially in states that have fully implemented its provisions. It hasn’t covered everyone, but it wasn’t expected to: it doesn’t cover undocumented immigrants, and the relative complexity of the program always meant that some eligible people would fall through the cracks. The original CBO estimates were that eventually 92 percent of non-elderly residents would have coverage, and in Medicaid expansion states we’re getting there.

Meanwhile, the whole thing has come in well below projected costs; insurance premiums will rise for 2016, but after two years of remarkably small rises that still leaves things cheaper than expected. And overall health care spending has come in far below expectations.

None of the other terrible things that were supposed to happen — job loss, destruction of full-time employment, a surge in the budget deficit — have happened either.

But to be a good Republican you have to insist that it has been a disaster. And Mitt Romney is therefore in the position of trashing his own life’s work. Sad. But he has nobody but himself to blame.