Repeal: The House voted by a wide margin Wednesday to rescind ObamaCare. Critics sniff that the vote was merely symbolic and therefore a waste of time. But this decision carries some weight.

Though it passed 245-189 in the lower chamber, the repeal measure is not likely to get through the Senate. Even if it did, President Obama would stand ready with a veto, and there’s no hope of an override.

So the ObamaCare train wreck will continue until the Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both chambers or simple majorities in the House and Senate to go with a GOP White House. But that doesn’t mean Wednesday’s vote, dismissed as “partisan grandstanding” by Harry Reid, the Senate’s top Democrat, isn’t important.

First, it shows that the new Republican majority in the House is serious. GOP candidates ran last fall on the promise that they would repeal the Democrats’ overhaul of American health care.

Through Wednesday’s vote, they’ve done all that’s currently within their power to keep that promise, and that’s a clear signal to voters and to the opposition party. House Republicans won’t be moved off their principles.

Second, the repeal vote put House lawmakers from both parties clearly on the record. When the campaigning begins for the 2012 elections, those votes will be issues. Congressmen will have to explain to constituents who don’t like ObamaCare why they refused to repeal it.

For some Democrats, the explanations will be especially tough.

Take, for two examples, North Carolina Reps. Heath Shuler and Larry Kissell. Both are from conservative districts, both voted against ObamaCare last year, yet both voted against repeal this time. GOP challengers will target — yes, we said “target” — the pair on this issue in 2012. They will do the same to all others who look unprincipled in their straying.

Third, Wednesday’s repeal vote was necessary to keep the issue current in the public eye.

Despite the Democrats’ claims that America would like their health care takeover once people found out what was in it, the legislation has never been popular. Our own polling shows half the country believes repealing or defunding the law must be a “high” or “very high” priority for the new Congress, while only 32% think it should be a “low” or “very low” priority.

Yet there is a danger that the righteous fervor against ObamaCare will cool as Americans get on with their lives, as they must. Call it the political equivalent of the Stockholm syndrome. The longer the Democrats’ offense goes unpunished, the more likely the public will begin to identify with its captors, even at its own expense.

If ever there was a federal law that needed to be dismantled, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is it. Congress needs to rid the country of this meddlesome legislation and if it can’t do it this year, voters will have to pick a new Congress in two years that can without requiring help from the White House.

While Wednesday’s repeal vote can’t guarantee such an election outcome, it does make it much more likely.