WASHINGTON, DC, United States (Xinhua) — The stakes are high for US Republicans, who now control both Congress and the White House, regarding whether they can deliver on a seven-year promise to repeal and replace ‘Obamacare’.

The Republicans’ failure to do so will mean big trouble for the GOP, experts say.

US President Donald Trump has been at the centre of controversy on a number of issues. Experts said that if he doesn’t deliver on his promise to replace the landmark but controversial Affordable Care Act, passed by former President Barack Obama, it will harm the Republican Party.

“This is the whole ball of wax for the Trump Administration. If they can’t get this health care through, it’s going to be very hard to get the rest of their agenda through, especially when Republicans campaigned for seven years on this very promise,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told Xinhua.

“So they are going to do everything necessary… to get it through, to show they can go from an opposition party to a governing party,” O’Connell said.

And if they get two or three big items through before the 2018 Congressional midterm elections, chances are Trump will be re-elected in 2020, he said.

Indeed, the health care plan Trump recently revealed has been criticised by his own party as being “Obamacare light” — a watered — down version of Obama’s law, which the GOP is against.

Darrell West, vice-president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua the health care Bill will be a major test for Republicans.

“They have majorities in the House and Senate, and it will be a complete embarrassment if they are not able to deliver on their most visible campaign pledge,” West said.

If they cannot assemble a winning coalition on this issue, it will be hard for them to deliver on other issues. A loss would be devastating to their base and make it difficult for them to do well in the 2018 elections, he said.

There is disarray in the GOP because the party is divided between those who want to completely throw out Obamacare and those who want to preserve certain of its advantages for their home states. That tension is what produced the current Bill, West said.

Ultimately, Republicans will have to figure out if there is a better bill that can pass muster with a majority of the House and Senate. Right now, it is hard to see what the alternative would look like because there are serious divisions within the GOP caucus, West said.

Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, told

Xinhua that since 2009, the GOP has defined itself in no small part as the party that will repeal the former president’s healthcare law.

The Republicans voted to repeal it dozens of times while Obama was president, and many of the Republicans currently in Congress owe their election to their opposition to Obamacare. After the 2016 election, Republican leaders made repealing the Obamacare a priority.

“If they’re not able to do that with unified control of Government, that will be a real blow,” Galdieri said.

Dan Mahaffee, senior vice-president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told

Xinhua there is significant opposition to Trump’s healthcare plan from the so-called freedom caucus on the Republican right.