The Pre-Post-Mortem on SCHIP

Assuming that President Bush will veto expansion of health insurance coverage for children, the Texas Observer forecasts what he may be up to and the potential fallout in Congress:

If he does veto [S]CHIP, and Congress fails to override — as now appears likely — then the White House will have leverage to negotiate a much smaller [S]CHIP expansion. The current Congressional bill would cover roughly 3.5 million uninsured kids. A veto — and the subsequent compromise — would likely deprive health insurance from hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of children.

The GOP would likely suffer as well. As we’ve observed in this space before, Texas Republicans have learned the hard way that cutting CHIP carries a political price. How many vulnerable Republican House members will see this kind of ad in 2008 thanks to the White House’s stubbornness.

They also argue that slashing SCHIP may actually increase the number of people on Welfare rolls, because of the increased expenses many poor families will incur without health insurance for their children. If conservatives want to cut Welfare, cutting SCHIP is not the way to do so.