Gore to criticize Bush plans on health care
Gore to criticize Bush plans on health care
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP): Republicans "have blood in their
eyes," Vice President Al Gore warned as he tried to keep pace
with Republican Party fund raising and rolled out an all-points
critique of the policy agenda of Republican presidential rival
George W. Bush.
Bush, the governor of Texas, should be embarrassed that
uninsured Texans cross the border into Mexico to seek health
care, Gore said at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser on
Tuesday night, winding up for his all-out slam of Bush's health
proposals on Wednesday at a Hartford, Connecticut, senior center.
"He wants to take little vouchers that are a tiny part of what
works in the private market and pretend that it's more than
enough when it's hardly a down payment," Gore told about 130
contributors at the $5,000-per-plate salmon dinner.
"I don't know about you but I think it's embarrassing that in
one of our states, people who need health care and can't get it
in the United States of America have to go across the border to
Mexico to get their health care. It happens every day in Texas."
Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer, saying Gore's
"credibility" was shining through, countered that Bush's proposed
health reforms would instead help as many as 18 million low-
income Americans gain health insurance.
Gore, on the other hand, "fails to explain why, since he was
elected, there are 8 million more Americans without health
insurance than when he took office. And he continues his campaign
of exaggeration, misrepresentation and distortion," Fleischer
said.
The DNC fund-raiser came on the eve of Wednesday night's
Republican National Committee gala in Washington, which Bush will
headline and help the party collect a record $18 million in one
night.
"The other side," Gore warned, was braced "to throw everything
including the kitchen sink into this and they've got blood in
their eyes."
Meanwhile, in Ohio, which is closely watched by candidates and
political parties because of its record of going for the winner
in the November election, Bush led Gore by 9 points, 52 percent
to 41 percent in a new Ohio Poll released today.
When third-party candidates Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader are
included, Bush's lead drops to 47 percent to Gore's 39 percent.
The telephone poll of 521 voters by the University of
Cincinnati was taken April 5 through Saturday and has an error
margin of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.