The biggest irony in all this is that the ACA is actually a deeply Republican piece of legislation. They just don't care for it's provenance. 

I think this theory is supported by Republicans' difficulty imagining anything they would like more, while perhaps most Democrats, (and certainly Bernie Sanders) have no trouble modeling health care reforms more to their taste, without resorting to the Rube Goldberg contrivances necessary to placate the insurance and pharmaceutical cartels.