From a tactical standpoint, it was the ultimate troll. It should (unless I'm missing some arcane backdoor option), kill their chances to do this with a budget reconciliation bill for at least another year. They can try it again next year, but it'll be in an election year and that should harden the moderates against killing it.
Eehh... it's been noted it may not be much of an actual troll at all. It was flashy, but much of the GOP seems very much aware actually passing an ACA repeal, or much of anything that intentionally hamstrung it in a way their constituents would feel, would probably be political suicide come 2018, and possibly 2020 and beyond, too.
Unfortunately (for the GOP in particular), a lot of those constituents also very much bought the anti-Obamacare rhetoric, so putting up much opposition to screwing it
also was likely to screw them. Self-fornicated coming and going, basically.
So something like what happened, with a distracting spectacle (i.e. drawing attention away from the other sacrifices) hinged on someone that pretty literally has nothing left to lose politically (odds are good he'll be dead by the 2018 election, and real damn bad he'll be alive for the 2020), means a lot of potentially at-risk senate seats didn't have to contemplate committing no-seppuku to save the rest of the GOP from the spike they've jammed up their own arse.
There's been a good chunk of face lost, but far less than a lot of the alternatives that were on the table, with far more counterplay narrative wise to work with and notably less cost. Cynically, as much as this eggs the GOP's face, it can be read as one of the better outcomes they could have been facing. And all it took was a dead man walking actually living up to a reputation for opposition to his party, for one of the few times in his political career.