The Affordable Care Act has been called as good as dead, a goner, a “miserable failure.”

The Republican majority in Congress fought it tooth and nail for the past seven years. Then a Republican got elected president in 2016 and the GOP became downright giddy at the prospect of repealing the ACA, President Barack Obama’s chief domestic achievement.

Then it happened.

The Republicans cobbled together something called the American Health Care Act. Then they sent it to the Congressional Budget Office for some “scoring.” The CBO then delivered some numbers the GOP didn’t want to hear: 24 million Americans would lose health insurance, the CBO declared.

The GOP’s response? The CBO doesn’t know what it’s talking about, congressional leaders said.

But isn’t the CBO the gold standard for determining these matters?

Now the TEA Party wing of the GOP is rebelling against the AHCA. It’s “Obamacare Light,” they say. They hate the AHCA. Of course, they hate the ACA even more, which is no surprise, given that a Democratic president happened to be its founding father.

Oh, and Democrats? They’re unified against any effort to repeal the ACA and replace it with something that relies heavily on “tax credits” for Americans to buy insurance; Democrats call it code for “tax relief for the wealthiest Americans.”

Which brings me to this point: If the Republican Party’s congressional elders cannot come up with an alternative to the ACA that all its members can endorse, can this party actually govern?