But since 2010, they have invested billions of dollars to overhaul their businesses, design new insurance plans and physician practices and develop better ways to monitor quality and control costs.
Few industry leaders want to go back to a system that most had concluded was failing, as costs skyrocketed and the ranks of the uninsured swelled.
Nor do they see much that is promising from the law's Republican critics. The GOP has focused on repealing Obamacare, but has devoted less energy to developing a replacement.
Healthcare industry officials generally view several GOP proposals, such as limiting coverage for the poor and scuttling new insurance marketplaces created by the law, as more damaging than helpful to the nation's healthcare system.
"The principle of providing the opportunity for everyone to get health coverage and of joining everybody together in shared responsibility is the right one," said James Roosevelt Jr., president of Tufts Health Plan, one of Massachusetts' largest insurers. "No one has presented a credible alternative."