[rndmize]

I continually heard some years back that Obamacare was basically Romneycare which was basically the Republican plan from the Clinton years. Further, as we can see from the current state of things, the Republicans might say they hate Obamacare, but now that they have a chance to repeal it and put their own plan in place, they've failed continually. There's no politically-tenable position to move further rightward unless you are in favor of less people having care or people having worse care.

In short, the Democrats basically adopted the old Republican position on the only economic issue listed by the OP - exactly in line with my earlier point.

[whopa]

The Democrats adopted Romneycare with some tweaks as a compromise effort. They view it as a starting point, not the end goal. Any attempts to move beyond that starting point were obstructed by Republicans.

The AHCA failed due to a small handful of Republicans rejecting it, with one part of that handful complaining that it wasn't pulled rightward enough, and the rest actually realizing that going rightward wasn't politically-tenable as you said. Most of the party was totally fine with the AHCA.