Asked at a confirmation hearing two weeks ago if he was working with President Trump on a secret plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, Representative Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, smiled broadly and answered: “It’s true that he said that, yes.”

The committee room, filled with health care lobbyists, consumer advocates and others with a vital stake in the future of the health care law, erupted with knowing laughter at Mr. Price’s careful formulation. For those following the issue closely, it has been an open secret that the fledgling Trump administration is a long way from fulfilling one of Mr. Trump’s most repeated campaign promises.

In a brief aside in an interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News broadcast before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Mr. Trump went further than he ever has in acknowledging the reality that any hope of quickly replacing the Affordable Care Act has been dashed.

“Yes, I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year,” the president said.

That admission is sure to be a serious disappointment for the president’s most fervent supporters, who sent him to Washington believing that he would move quickly to dispatch the health law.

Soon after he was elected, Mr. Trump reacted to Republican suggestions of a delay in replacing the health act by insisting that repealing and replacing the law must happen at about the same time.

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Jeffrey R. Ungvary President