Gibbs: By next week, health care reform will be law of the land

The health care reform bill will be passed by Congress and signed by the president by this time next week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced today.

“We’ll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week,” Gibbs said in a one-on-one interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.”Whoever sits here at this time next week, I think will not be talking about health care as a proposal, but as the law of the land.”

Asked about the recent ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that the House Democrats cannot use a tactic they were first reported to be exploring last week by The Daily Caller — to hold the Senate health care bill in their chamber after passing it to force the Senate to work with them on reconciliation — Gibbs simply said that he would leave the “technical” issues to the parliamentarian.

The press secretary also predicted the bill’s passage would help Democrats in the midterm elections.

“Once it passes, we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of health care reform,” he said.

When pressed by Wallace as to what it would mean for the Obama presidency if the bill failed to pass, Gibbs said that the president’s job “doesn’t mean doing what is politically popular…the president doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the pollsters.”

Speaking on ABC’s This Week, White House adviser David Axelrod struck an even more aggressive tone.

“I believe it is going to happen this week,” Axelrod said. “I am absolutely confident we are going to be successful.”

When asked about insurance companies and preexisting conditions, Axelrod was defiant: “Let’s have that fight,” he said. “Make my day.” And on the topic of parliamentary procedures that might stall the vote on the bill, Axelrod said that voters “don’t know or care much about the sequencing of parliamentary procedures.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, said the White House’s rhetoric is unrealistic.

If Democrats had the votes necessary to pass health care, “this bill would be long gone,” Boehner said. “Guess what? They don’t have the votes.”

Boehner added that he thinks the GOP has a “steep, but doable” chance to reclaim a majority in the House this November.

The comments come after the president decided to delay a major trip to Asia to focus on passing health care reform this week.

WATCH GIBBS’ PROMISE