Prediction: SCHIP Passes within 100 Days

President-elect Obama has an extremely ambitious national health care proposal that is likely to face strong debate -- at minimum -- if and when he puts it in front of the American people, but look for him and the Democrats in Congress to pass the SCHIP [State Children's Health Insurance Program] legislation, which was vetoed twice by George W. Bush, of course, within the first 100 days of the Obama presidency.

The benefits of passage will be two-fold.

First, expansion of SCHIP will vastly improve the health care options for thousands of low-income families with children.

Second, SCHIP will help clear the path toward comprehensive national health insurance by providing concrete evidence -- like the Medicare and Healthy Families programs before it -- that government can indeed run a health insurance program efficiently and effectively.