ASADENA, Calif. - Vice President Al Gore, expanding his attacks on the health-care plan of Bill Bradley, charged yesterday that the former New Jersey senator's proposal would hurt poor people and minorities.
Bradley has called for eliminating Medicaid, the federal-state health-insurance program for the poor, and instead provide recipients with publicly subsidized vouchers so they can buy health insurance in the private market.
In a speech yesterday, Gore said his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination wants to ''dismantle Medicaid.''
The results, Gore said, would ''disproportionately hurt lower-income families and ... disproportionately impact on African-Americans and Latinos.''
According to Gore aides, Bradley's plan would be most unfair to blacks because they are nearly three times more likely to receive Medicaid than whites. About 37 percent of black children receive health care through Medicaid, compared with 12 percent of white children, said the aides, citing the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
Gore's attack, one of many against Bradley's health-care plan, is striking because of its suggestion that Bradley would not treat minorities as fairly as he would. Bradley's campaign needs the support of a large proportion of the black vote, and Bradley has repeatedly said that improving race relations is his ''top priority.''
Gore's assertions on black Medicaid recipients resemble his earlier statements about Hispanic and disabled Medicaid recipients, who, the vice president said, would be hit especially hard if Bradley were elected president and eliminated Medicaid.
When Gore made that criticism, Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser called it ''a broad-brushed scare tactic lumping anything that you can find into one negative attack.''
Under Bradley's plan, estimated to cost $650 billion over 10 years, health insurance would be provided to as many as 39 million of the 44.3 million Americans without health insurance. It would pay insurance premiums of up to $1,200 a year for children in families earning up to twice the poverty level, currently $32,800 for a family of four. Subsidies would phase out at three times the poverty level.
Gore has proposed a health-care plan that would offer insurance or subsidies to all children, as well as some parents of low-income children. The $264 billion, 10-year plan would cover up to 15 million of those currently uninsured.
Children at 250 percent of the poverty level, or $41,000 for a family of four, would be eligible for Medicare or a similar federal plan. Currently, eligibility ends at twice the poverty line.
Michael Kranish of the Globe Staff reported from Pasadena; material from the Associated Press was also used.
