There was never a real attempt to repeal it. Even when an effort passed in the House, it was obvious the Senate wouldn’t do the same, and several times they explicitly voted DOWN the House version to write their own instead, which then never made it through the House. At no point was it really plausible both sides of Congress would actually pass a repeal.

The resident Republican Senator that is allowed to vote against the group to prevent shit they don’t actually want to happen while making it look like they do… always would strike it down. This is the seat that Senators like McCain held as a failsafe against their propaganda actually passing, prior to Trump throwing a monkey wrench into everything by refusing to follow the carefully set playbook. It’s not quite as neat since then, but there is a pattern with a couple Republican Senators that are allowed to occasionally vote against the party and prevent things from passing without much negativity from their propaganda outlets.

The party says what they want to rile up their base knowing it won’t actually pass since they have specific individuals whose job it is to prevent that when necessary to stop their own fake initiatives.