Over the last seven years, the GOP has won successive elections by highlighting problems with Obamacare, airing more than $235 million in negative ads slamming the law, and staging more than 50 high-profile repeal votes. In 2016 every major Republican presidential candidate, including Donald Trump, campaigned on a pledge to quickly get rid of it.

Now in total control of Congress and the White House, some GOP legislators are saying that the political assault on Obamacare was an exercise in cynical politics, and that an outright repeal was never on the table.

"We have Republicans who do not want to repeal Obamacare," said Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., on Sirius XM Patriot on Wednesday.

"They may have campaigned that way, they may have voted that way a couple of years ago when it didn't make any difference," Brooks continued.