But Republicans really wanted to repeal Obamacare—some of them had made their names in politics almost exclusively on promises to do so—and Ryan used that eagerness to his advantage. Over the course of weeks of amendments and tweaks, House leadership began the process of shoring up some of the more obvious flaws in the AHCA and bringing conservatives and moderate wings aboard. To that end, they bolstered the “Patient and State Stability Fund” to provide more reinsurance funds to states. They also implemented provisions that would allow states to further deregulate insurance plans and allow more barebones plans to receive tax credits.

With some arm-twisting and a rushed vote without a Congressional Budget Office score, despite fears—later confirmed—that the plan would leave upwards of 20 million more people uninsured, the House managed to pass the AHCA, but in doing so passed on many of their pet bill’s instabilities to the Senate.

The Senate’s version of the bill continued the House’s trend of sanding some of the rougher edges of the AHCA, all while adding piecemeal amendments to keep both wings of the party happy. The Better Care Reconciliation Act reversed what Trump called the “mean” tax-credit structure of the AHCA, and created a structure that was largely similar to, but slightly less generous than, Obamacare’s existing structure. In doing so, it decreased some of the more extreme disruptions of the AHCA’s deregulations and defunding on premiums, but not enough to avoid another CBO score indicating the bill would increase the number of uninsured people by over 20 million.

But McConnell is no Ryan, and facing public outcry and rumblings among both moderates and conservatives, he went underground, crafting follow-up deals and amendments that could get him 50 votes, all while maximizing secrecy and public confusion. During that process, McConnell added more long-term cuts to Medicaid and more insurance deregulations. But those additions to mollify conservative members of McConnell’s conference reduced the bill’s support among moderates. McConnell’s balancing act fell apart when conservative members defected as well, citing what they saw as a the legislation’s similarity to Obamacare.

Faced with those defections, McConnell tested a few new strategies, including a dead-in-the-water vote to simply repeal Obamacare, but it seems the real strategy was already taking shape: McConnell intended to begin the reconciliation process, get disparate wings of his party to the table with amendments, and create a repeal option that rolled back only the parts of Obamacare that his caucus agreed should go, then perhaps get that legislation into a House-Senate conference to add more pieces.

His strategy was thrown in jeopardy by the Senate parliamentarian’s denial of some of many of those critical amendments and sweeteners, but the final option still held. It was the skinny repeal or nothing, and McConnell wouldn’t let the CBO, the parliamentarian, or public opinion get in the way of passing something.