We’ve got two stories coming out today that pretty much confirm what the pessimists among us always knew: The GOP isn’t going to repeal Obamacare, and it’s entirely likely they never were serious about it.

The first bit is from TheBlaze, and it focuses on one Republican Senator in particular – Lisa Murkowski.

During Murkowski’s annual address to the Alaska legislature Wednesday evening, she addressed concerns about Republicans’ plan to dismantle the controversial Affordable Care Act and promised to vote according to her state’s wishes when it comes to Medicaid and Planned Parenthood.

“Here in Alaska, some 27,000 Alaskans — about 28,000 actually — now have coverage for the first time,” Murkowski said. “Which means that they have access to care for the first time. While I clearly have concerns about the expansion’s long-term costs, it has strengthened our native health system and reduced the number of uninsured that are coming into our emergency rooms.”

She added, “So as long as this legislature wants to keep the expansion, Alaska should have that option. So I will not vote to repeal it.”

Murkowski, if you will recall, also broke rank with Republicans on confirming Betsy DeVos, and has taken money from liberal groups (like teachers’ unions).

However, one Senator’s words aren’t enough. There is a man who exemplifies everything that was (and still is) wrong with the GOP establishment who has more or less confirmed all this with his own words. That man is former House Speaker John Boehner.

“[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare – I shouldn’t call it repeal-and-replace, because it’s not going to happen,” he said.

Boehner’s comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement.

President Donald Trump has said in recent days that he will release a plan by early to mid-March on how the administration plans to move forward on a repeal-and-replace plan.

On Thursday, Boehner said the talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

“I started laughing,” he said. “Republicans never ever agree on health care.”

“Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act … that’s going to be there,” Boehner concluded.

Boehner would know, because this is exactly how it’s done in Washington D.C., and specifically how it’s done in the Republican Party.

The GOP has spent YEARS taking money from its base and saying how Obamacare was the worst thing in the world and how, by God, if we gave them the House they’d fix this mess… and then if we gave them the Senate… and then if we gave them the White House.

And it’s not going to happen.

See, it’s something a lot of us have known forever: Once a new entitlement is enacted, it’s nigh-impossible to undo. There are ways to do it, but there is simply no one with the willpower to push the full repeal through.

Instead, what we’re going to get is some half-assed mix-and-match effort to patch things up, which will only go to destabilize the insurance market even further. And, this time, it’s not just a Democratic Party law. It’ll be bipartisan.

Just the way they like it.