ES MOINES - Al Gore and George Bush are locking horns over health care, with Gore seeking to build on momentum in the polls and the Bush camp launching its first negative ad of the fall campaign.
Gore has announced plans for a weeklong focus on health care, an area in which aides contend Bush is vulnerable because of ''a fundamental difference'' between the two.
Seeking to counter that, Bush has begun airing a campaign commercial touting his own health-care plan, while the Republican National Committee tomorrow plans to launch a $7 million TV ad attack on Gore's proposals.
''Gore opposes bipartisan reform,'' says the RNC ad, which is set to air in nine states. ''He's pushing a big-government plan that lets Washington bureaucrats interfere with what your doctor prescribes.''
While Bush aides noted the attack spot is not run by them, the Bush campaign has veto power over RNC ads, which the Texas governor used last week to kill an RNC ad before it aired that questioned Gore's veracity.
''This ad is as negative as it is desperate as it is fabricated,'' Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said yesterday of the RNC health care ad. ''They spend more on television advertising than prescription-drug coverage.''
Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett countered that the RNC spot is merely a response to Democratic assaults during the summer.
''I would note that the Democrats have run something like $30 million in attack ads on Governor Bush,'' Bartlett said. ''It's highly hypocritical of them to call anything we're doing negative.''
Gore has offered a $250 billion, 10-year plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, while Bush has offered a proposal expanding coverage to low-income seniors, but with few details.
The Bush health care ad uses excerpts from his GOP convention speech, with the Republican promising, ''We will strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the greatest generation and for generations to come.''
The ad is being introduced in nine of 21 states where the Bush campaign already is airing an education ad, for a total buy of more than $5 million. The Bush health care ad and critical RNC spot overlap in nine battleground states: Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington state, and Wisconsin.
Gore is airing a biographical ad in 17 states through Wednesday.
Tomorrow, the Democrat plans to launch a campaign trail offensive on health care, focusing on an issue aides say breaks well for him as he charges into Labor Day and the traditional kickoff of the fall campaign.
Gore opens his week in Tallahassee, Fla., touting his plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, then heads west to talk about expanding child health coverage in New Mexico. On a bus trip in Oregon, he will promote his plan to bolster Medicare and boost spending on medical research, and cap this week's swing in Seattle pushing for a patient's bill of rights.
''Al Gore's agenda translates into good politics in Florida,'' said Lehane of the state where Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor.
The Bush campaign said the Clinton-Gore administration has not done so well on health care and many Americans go without.
''We sure hope the vice president takes the opportunity to explain why there are 8 million more uninsured Americans,'' said Bartlett. ''They've had the opportunity to lead on this issue and they've squandered it.''
