Tevi Troy and Lanhee Chen write at the Wall Street Journal about the prospects for repairing damage inflicted on the American health care sector by the Affordable Care Act.

When the new Congress and President-elect Trump take office in January, Republicans will have a real chance to repeal President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. If they succeed, it will be the result of their carefully executed strategy to repeal the law and repeated congressional votes to do so. This approach was the subject of much derision from Democrats, but sticking to it has now put the Republicans in a position where they can reach their goal.

When Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010, they immediately began repeal efforts. Since January 2011 the House has passed more than 50 bills that would repeal all or some of the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans knew that repeal had no chance of passing a Democratic Senate, but the votes placed a marker showing that a duly elected arm of the U.S. government opposed the law and was willing to take steps to repeal it.

Democrats and liberal pundits were merciless in their critique of Republican efforts. As comedian Bill Maher put it, “The Republicans in Congress voted to repeal ObamaCare for a 40th time today. It’s really now less a governing philosophy, and it’s more like Charlie Manson applying for parole.”

After Republicans won the Senate in 2014, the upper chamber worked with the House to repeal core provisions of ObamaCare via the budget process. This legislation reached President Obama, who vetoed it. The reaction was again dismissive: “It got them nothing, and with the stroke of a pen, the president dispensed with it,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Yet Republicans had demonstrated a legislative path to repeal.

The accusation that Republicans have no plans for an appropriate replacement is false. The GOP has multiple plans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “A Better Way” as well as plans from Sens. Richard Burr and Orrin Hatch and Rep. Fred Upton; Rep. Pete Sessions and Sen. Bill Cassidy; Rep. Tom Price, Sens. John McCain and David Perdue; Rep. Phil Roe and the Republican Study Committee; and Sen. Ben Sasse, among others. Add to this “Improving Health and Health Care: An Agenda for Reform,” the consensus health-reform plan by conservative scholars, including one of us (Mr. Chen), and it’s clear that the GOP has a plethora of plans.