I was compelled to respond to the Post-Gazette's harebrained editorial regarding my vote on reauthorizing SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program ("Chipped Away: Congressmen Can Be Hazardous to Children's Health," Oct. 18). It would have best served the PG's readership if the paper's editorial board would have done a nominal amount of background on my record before characterizing my stance as "harmful ... to children and working-class families across the nation." I hope this response will set the record straight.

Increasing access to quality, affordable health care for our rural communities has been the hallmark of my 30-year-record as an elected official, something the PG did not care to mention.

Created by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress in 1997, SCHIP aimed to cover children whose family's income was too high to qualify for Medicaid, but who still could not afford private insurance. Here we are a decade later and regrettably the debate in Washington is missing the target of helping underprivileged kids gain health-care coverage. Some are even calling into question my commitment to leveling the health-care playing field.

During my tenure as chairman of the Pennsylvania Senate Health and Welfare Committee, I authored Pennsylvania's original CHIP law. Among the first states to create such a program, Pennsylvania's law -- which I wrote -- eventually led to the current federal-state partnership. For my efforts in Congress, I was selected as the 2006 Legislator of the Year by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health, a leading rural health advocacy group.

SCHIP is a worthy program and I, like every congressman, want to see it continue to help low-income children. However, the current proposal barely resembles the program I helped create in Pennsylvania. This bill drastically veers from SCHIP's original intent of helping low-income children and would expand the program to cover individuals never intended to receive subsidized health care, including childless adults.

There are half a million eligible children who are not currently enrolled in SCHIP. Conversely, hundreds of thousands of adults are enrolled in SCHIP. In fact, 87 percent of the current SCHIP enrollees in Minnesota are adults. This bill would wrongly remove an important measure requiring 95 percent of eligible children to be enrolled in SCHIP before expanding coverage to middle-income families. Why would we expand coverage to middle-income folks while there are still needy children not enrolled in a program created to cover them?

What may be worse than this reckless expansion is that two million children would drop their private coverage and move onto SCHIP. Shouldn't we help more low-income kids gain coverage before subsidizing health care for those who already have it?

The bill even would make it easier for illegal immigrants to receive SCHIP benefits. In 2005, Congress passed citizenship-verification requirements for those applying for Medicaid and SCHIP. The current SCHIP bill repeals that provision and allows applicants to verify citizenship by simply submitting a Social Security number.

While this process might determine whether an applicant is using a fake Social Security number, it would not determine whether the applicant is a legal U.S. resident. A recent letter from the Social Security commissioner articulated this important point.

Pennsylvanians and Americans everywhere who struggle to provide health insurance for their own families work too hard to have their tax dollars used to cover the health-care tabs of individuals who broke our laws and came here illegally.

Further, to fund this huge government expansion of health care, the bill would raise cigarette taxes from 39 cents per pack to $1.00 per pack. This tax increase would disproportionately impact my district's poorest residents, who shouldn't have to subsidize health care for middle-income families and illegal immigrants.

The bill's shortcomings could have been avoided had the Democratic leadership sought bipartisan input. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cavalierly dismissed the president's invitation to find a compromise agreement that he and congressional Republicans could support, instead choosing to perpetuate the political grandstanding we are witnessing today. For these reasons, I voted to sustain the president's veto.

Instead of playing politics with needy children, Congress should agree on a reasonable SCHIP reauthorization that truly helps low-income children gain access to quality health care, doesn't benefit illegal aliens and doesn't raise taxes on America's poorest. I will support an SCHIP bill that does exactly that, and I look forward to the Democrats and their allies ending their political posturing.