The Hill News

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the Republican effort to repeal the healthcare reform law is not serious and has no chance of passing. 

House Republicans are expected to vote on a bill that would undo the law Wednesday, but Gibbs said that even they know that the legislation is not a winning bet.

{mosads}"I would share the belief of many, including, I think, enunciated by those who are going to vote for repeal tomorrow, that this isn't a serious legislative effort," he said at his daily press briefing. "I don't think it's going anywhere."

Democrats have sought to downplay the importance of the vote as merely a symbolic effort by the GOP to appeal to their base. 

The debate will put the political acumen of both sides to the test: an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday showed that the public is divided between Obama and the Republicans over healthcare reform.

Most observers to do not expect the bill to get past the Democratic Senate if it passes the Republican-controlled House. Even if it did, the White House has said President Obama will veto any measure repealing his signature domestic legislative achievement.

But Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the chief sponsor of the repeal bill, said Tuesday that the bill could conceivably be passed by the Senate under altered rules, explaining that the vote is part of a broader plan to get rid of the law with a Republican in the White House in 2013.

"That must go down. It does have a chance to pass in the Senate," King said on ABC News's "Top Line" webcast.

He also said that efforts to defund the law through appropriations bills could offer a temporary fix, although he stressed that full repeal is the only way to permanently get rid of the law, which he compared to a "malignant tumor."

"We can bring about in effect a full repeal by stopp! ing funding," he said.

Gibbs said that the vote will only symbolize the Republican's alliance with health insurers instead of consumers.

"I do think it's an important symbol to the American people about what some who some people think should be in charge of making healthcare decisions, not families or patients or doctors, but let's put health insurance companies back in charge, giving them the ability again to drop, deny, limit or cap your healthcare coverage," he said.