ice President Al Gore, during a quick stop in Boston yesterday, racheted up his rhetorical assault on Bill Bradley's health care plan - with a little help from a family friend, Danny Moretz.
Moretz is an 8-year-old boy from Georgia, a heart-transplant recipient whose years of costly care have been paid for by Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Bradley's health plan would eliminate Medicaid in favor of a new health plan designed to mandate coverage for all the poor, and most everyone else.
But Gore, after a private visit to Moretz at Boston's Children's Hospital, charged that Bradley's move to replace Medicaid would throw into doubt the health care of families like the Moretzes, who turned to the federal program after their private insurer dropped them.
The vice president is trying to turn the former New Jersey senator's health care plan, with its rethinking of Medicaid, into a pivotal issue in his campaign for the presidency.
Yesterday, in an interview, Gore called former senator Bradley's health care plan ''ludicrous,'' ''deeply flawed,'' and ''a disaster.'' He said families like the Moretzes would not be able to obtain the care they need, and, he contends, the Bradley plan would imperil existing national standards for nursing homes, an alarming prospect for the elderly.
''He made a huge mistake,'' Gore said of Bradley's proposal. ''He spent the entire surplus in his first campaign promise, and he allowed insurance company advocates to pawn off on him a deeply flawed health proposal that is unraveling before his very eyes.''
Bradley says he is ''deeply disappointed'' in Gore for what he considers disingenuous attacks on his plan. He also scorns Gore for using the health care issue to stir up an array of interest groups and to question Bradley's commitment to African-Americans, Latinos, and the poor.
''I think that he's wrong,'' Bradley said this week. ''He's defending something that needs to be improved. And I am not the only one that says that. ... What Medicaid does not do is cover all poor people. ... I want to cover everybody in poverty, and that is the plan I have laid out.''
Such sweeping coverage, Bradley aides said yesterday, would also clearly cover Danny Moretz.
Mark Longabaugh, Bradley's New Hampshire director, also called Gore's assertion that nursing home standards would be eliminated without Medicaid ''absurd'' and ''ridiculous.'' He accused Gore of distorting the facts, which he called a reflection of the vice president's character.
Bradley's health care plan would, in fact, replace Medicaid, the principle government program to provide health benefits to 40 million poor and disabled children and adults. The program also monitors nursing home quality across the nation.
In the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, 102,000 people receive Medicaid benefits, and in Iowa, home of the first caucuses, there are 302,000 people enrolled in the program.
Bradley has proposed replacing Medicaid with a subsidy to be used to purchase private health insurance. For example, children would receive about $1,200 each to apply to the insurer chosen by their family.
Health care policy experts say they admire Bradley for tackling the thorny universal health coverage problem. But they also say that big ideas and big changes to any system often result in complications and problems.
''It appears that some significant portions of the Bradley plan have not been completely thought through,'' said John E. McDonough, a former state representative from Boston who teaches health care policy at Brandeis University and is supporting Bradley for president. He called Gore's criticisms ''legitimate concerns,'' but he also said the vice president is trying to ''score political points by scaring people.''
Nevertheless, McDonough said he believes it is more important that Bradley is talking about universal health coverage, rather than presenting a perfectly polished proposal.
Judith Feder, the dean of policy studies at Georgetown University and a specialist in health policy, said it is a mistake to eliminate Medicaid as Bradley would do.
''Medicaid plays a very important role in serving a very disadvantaged population that private insurance has never served,'' Feder said. ''There's a risk, if one simply shifted from a state-managed arrangement, that disadvantaged people can get lost.''
In New Hampshire, Gore's attacks on Bradley have gained him some allies, as some advocates for the disabled, the mentally ill and the poor have begun to speak out against Bradley's proposal.
Beth Dixon of Concord, whose son has acute disabilities, said Medicaid has helped her son live at home and attend school with the help of an assistant.
''The current insurance market is unwilling to help people with long-term health care needs,'' Dixon said at a Gore-sponsored news conference this week. ''Medicaid has been a safety net for our family.''
While Bradley and his campaign complain that Gore is using scare tactics in his quest to win the nomination, the vice president said yesterday that he will not back down.
''If a Republican had proposed the elimination of Medicaid, and the spending of the entire surplus without saving a penny for Medicare on the eve of the baby boomers' retirement, every Democrat in America would be up in arms condemning such a proposal,'' Gore said.
Bradley and his allies consider Gore's own health plan, which carries a much smaller price tag, ''timid'' and inadequate.
''What's terribly discouraging,'' McDonough said, ''is seeing the vice president attack Bradley and say, `No, we can't do anything significant.'''
