President Trump and Speaker Ryan failed to notch a GOP victory by repealing and replacing Obamacare, but the defeat of The American Health Care Act did highlight an important conservative principle. Conservatism has always emphasized incremental, pragmatic change, based on the will of a majority; it’s progressives who favor sweeping, radical, top-down decrees that ignore the popular will.

That was the core problem with Obamacare: trying to  remake our entire health care system in one ridiculously complicated, widely unpopular piece of legislation, that garnered no Republican support in Congress.

But now that Obamacare has been the law for seven years, Republicans shouldn’t repeat these mistakes – again, trying to reshape the whole system in a single bill, with no support from the opposition party. In the future, Republicans must erase Obamacare step by step, building broad popular and bipartisan support for a series of desperately needed reforms, not attempt another over-hyped, and hyper partisan, quick fix.