In an effort to blunt Democratic attacks, House Republicans designed a healthcare plan that kept most of Obamacare’s regulations in place and preserved some of its spending. The hope was that when it came time for the Congressional Budget Office to review the legislation, the bill would be more competitive with Obamacare on coverage than a full repeal coupled with a purer free market alternative. Now that the CBO has released its highly-anticipated estimate of the GOP alternative, it has obliterated that argument. Based on what we know now, the truth is that not only would full repeal coupled with a free market replacement be more satisfying to conservatives, it would likely be found by the CBO to cover more people. And we don’t have to speculate much on this.

In 2015, CBO evaluated a straight full repeal of Obamacare, without any replacement, and it found that coverage would actually be slightly better than what it would be under the House Republican plan being pushed by Speaker Paul Ryan. Whereas the Ryan plan would, according to the CBO, leave 51 million uninsured in 2025, two years ago, the CBO projected under a full repeal (without a replacement), 50 million would be uninsured. Now, it’s quite possible that the CBO would score full repeal differently now, given a different set of underlying assumptions. But it’s hard to see how the basic picture would change much.