Thanks, Obama. No, really, thank you.

This is the problem for Republicans: Under Obamacare, Americans know that health insurers can't deny them coverage or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history. No Republican plan could provide such an ironclad guarantee.

Obamacare's system does come with real trade-offs. Healthier people are asked to pay higher premiums than they would if insurers could give them a discount. Health plans have struggled in some places because the bills for the Obamacare customers were higher than they had expected. That is part of why we saw some significant premium hikes in the law's first few years.

But Republicans are yet to come up with an alternative that provides such certainty — and that they can sell to the American people.

An estimated 27 percent of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions. The old days, when insurers in the individual market could discriminate against those people at will, are not forgotten. The "Jimmy Kimmel test" that dominated the final days of debate over Graham-Cassidy was founded on preexisting conditions.

People don't want to go back.

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