To be sure, the law isn’t an unmitigated success. Fewer people than projected have signed up on the exchanges, which could be a challenge to their long-term stability in some places (though that has led to the law being cheaper than expected). Half the co-ops set up under the law have failed. But overall, the law looks to be a clear victory. Perhaps as a result, Republicans have quietly dialed down the anti-Obamacare rhetoric. Two of the three remaining Republican candidates embrace key parts of the ACA, and few GOP Senate candidates in close races are trumpeting their opposition to the law. (It can’t help that some conservatives, including Supreme Court justices, still need versing in the law’s basics.)

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Yet even if Obamacare were the train wreck that Republicans claim it has been, their failure to unite around a replacement would then be all the more incredible. Two thousand and two hundred days after Obamacare became law, there have been zero Republican votes on a replacement. In that time, Taylor Swift became a pop artist, the House and the Senate have changed hands in separate elections, Obama won reelection and millions of women have reaped the benefits of free birth control.

All of which brings me to Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The House speaker’s speech last week was mostly covered as an implied rebuke to the outrageous rhetoric of Donald Trump. Some — rightly — took him to task for not mentioning Trump by name. But that dodge was merely a matter of degree. What differentiated Ryan’s speech from a mere critique of Trump’s tone was what he offered against it. “Ideas, passionately promoted and put to the test—that’s what politics can be,” he said. “That’s what our country can be.” Praising Jack Kemp’s push for tax cuts, he said, “All it took was someone willing to put policy on paper and promote it passionately. This is the basic concept behind the policy agenda that House Republicans are building right now.”

Except the “policy on paper” is nowhere to be found. In December, Ryan promised to introduce an alternative to Obamacare this year. Then he began to edge away from that. (His office tried to spin it as staying out of the process of assembling an alternative, dodging the reality that choosing a specific GOP alternative will require the speaker to rally support around it.)