It really ticked me off at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I think the talk about just moving on to tax reform after initial AHCA failure was probably a gambit by Trump and Ryan to make the Freedom Caucus understand: Look fellas, if we're just going to let ObamaCare stay as is, then the tax reform you want isn't going to be the tax reform you'll get.
Because how could it be? ObamaCare itself is so heavy-laden with taxes, it's all but impossible to do a real reform of the tax code if you simply leave all those taxes in place. The Freedom Caucus considered the AHCA not perfect enough, but one thing it did was repeal all ObamaCare taxes, which would have very nicely set the stage for dealing with the rest of the tax code. As such, it never made sense to simply skip it and move on to tax reform, and it's clear now that Trump has no intention of doing so:
