You aren't reading what I am saying. If the GOP was forced to use reconciliation to pass the CR, their legislative plan to use reconciliation to pass AHCA and the tax cuts is in jeopardy. It isn't about moving AHCA down the line, it is about making AHCA harder to pass.
The government shutdown threats seemed to mostly be geared towards getting a CR with spending that the Democrats wanted. I think a victory on a short-term spending bill is less important, especially since it has no real long term legislative impact.
I think the GOP gave the Democrats what they wanted on the CR so that they could avoid the embarrassment of a shutdown and they went ahead and passed AHCA 6 days after the CR was passed.
In the obstructionist Democrats scenario:
Option 1 would be that the government would be shut down, the GOP and Trump would be embarrassed at the government shutting down on Trump's 100th day and they would spend the next days/weeks figuring a way out (they would not be passing AHCA 6 days after the shutdown).
Option 2 would be that the GOP uses up a reconciliation opportunity simply to avoid the government shutdown on Trump's 100th day of office.. They would need to reevaluate their legislative plan for the year because they would need to cram AHCA and tax cuts into one bill, the final reconciliation bill for 2017. It is less likely that they would have passed AHCA 6 days after using reconciliation to pass the CR, because AHCA would need to be bundled with the tax cuts now that there is only 1 reconciliation opportunity.
Option 3 would be that they just get rid of the legislative filibuster and pass a CR without Democratic votes or reconciliation. That also means that they can pass AHCA and tax cuts with 50 votes since the filibuster is gone. But it is doubtful that the GOP would kill the filibuster just to pass a short-term spending bill.
