Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn paid a visit to the Austin call center for the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, to reinforce his support of the program, which provides government-funded coverage to low-income children.

"The only question is whether the program will be expanded, and to what extent it will be expanded," said Cornyn.

Texas leads the nation in the percentage of children without health insurance.

While state lawmakers took steps to get more eligible children onto CHIP rolls this spring, federal funding is at a standstill.

Under CHIP, state money is matched by federal funds -- but a bipartisan effort to reauthorize and expand the program was vetoed by President George W. Bush this fall.

Senator Cornyn was among 18 U.S. Senators who voted against the expansion.

Texas' senior U.S. Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, supported the bill.

"I think there's a question of fiscal responsibility," Cornyn said. "Rather than take our eye off the ball to cover other children at higher income levels, shouldn't we take care of [poor children] first?"

Cornyn authored a CHIP proposal of his own, but critics say the Cornyn proposal does too little.

"What Senator Cornyn has tried to do is say he's for CHIP, but he's never shown us the money," said Scott McCown, who heads the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning policy group in Austin.

"He's never filed a bill that would have taken care of those five million kids in the country, and those 330,000 kids right here in Texas who arent on CHIP today."

State Representative Rick Noriega, D-Houston, is running for the Democratic nomination for Cornyn's US Senate seat. He called Cornyn's photo op at the Austin call center "disingenuous".

"Why would [Cornyn] vote against the bipartisan measure that would have made a significant dent in the 1.4 million children who are uninsured in the state of Texas? He can couch it, shape it, any way he wants," Noriega said. "He can't walk away from the fact that he was one of the 18 senators who voted against a bi-partisan expansion."