Under new Speaker John Boehner, U.S. House Republicans are bulling ahead with a doomed effort to repeal the health reform law that Congress passed last year when Democrats were in charge. It’s a pointless and partisan stunt that will steal limited time and resources from other priorities, starting with reviving the economy and creating jobs.

The repeal bill is likely to pass the House, with its new GOP majority, but will almost certainly stall in the Senate, where Demo-crats are still in control. Even if minority Republicans in the upper chamber somehow muster enough Democratic support to pass a repeal, President Barack Obama will veto it.

The Republicans’ backup plan is to withhold the federal funding needed to carry out the law. But again, the Democrat-led Senate and Mr. Obama’s veto pen loom as obstacles.

The strategy might make Republicans feel good but could lead to months of partisan stalemate in Washington. So much for Mr. Boehner’s vow to end “business as usual” in the House.

Florida’s Republican members in the House have blessed the party’s strategy of repealing or undermining the new health reform law. But a Census Bureau survey found that 4.1 million Floridians — more than one in five state residents — didn’t have health insurance in 2009. What happens to them if the law, which would extend coverage to 32 million Americans, is sabotaged by congressional Republicans? Last year’s GOP alternative would have covered just 3 million Americans, according to Congressional Budget Office analysis.

And what happens to provisions in the law that would bar health insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, or from dropping policy holders who get sick? What about provisions allowing children to stay on their parents’ policies up to age 26, or giving tax credits to small businesses that cover their employees?

The GOP plan to scrap the law also belies the party’s promise to reduce the red ink in Washington. A repeal would add at least $200 billion to deficits over the next decade, according to a new CBO estimate, because it would eliminate parts of the law that would more than cover its cost.

We supported the law, despite reservations about some of its details and the process by which it was passed, because of the imperative to expand coverage to millions of Americans without health insurance. We did so with the hope that Congress would seek ways to improve it.

And that’s where House Republicans should be focusing their effort, not on a fruitless bid to repeal the law or a divisive plot to undermine it.

Already there are options that have attracted support in both parties. For example, a bipartisan plan in the Senate would let states seek federal approval as soon as 2014 to carry out their own versions of health reform, if such plans would cover as many people as the federal law would.

House GOP leaders also could press Congress to take another crack at enacting reasonable limits on medical malpractice awards. Such limits could save money by reducing the unnecessary and costly defensive medicine that health providers practice to protect themselves from lawsuits.

Other options that could draw bipartisan backing include easing the benefit requirements for health-insurance policies and reducing tax breaks on gold-plated policies. Both could curb health costs.

House Republicans would better prove they are worthy of the trust that voters have placed in them by improving the law, not just picking a fight.