Gore Prods Bush, GOP on Medical Care

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Bemoaning the state of the country’s medical system, Vice President Al Gore continued to press Republican leaders and George W. Bush on Tuesday to shake off the influence of “big insurance companies and HMOs” he claims have held up the passage of a meaningful patients’ bill of rights.

Gore said that too many patients have their medical decisions dictated by accountants instead of doctors, creating an urgent need for a law that will guarantee people the right to the best possible care.

“These financial people don’t have a license to practice medicine, and they don’t have a right to play God, and the law ought to be changed to take that right away from them,” he said. Several hundred people gathered in the brick student union of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences applauded enthusiastically.

But while the majority of Americans support a law that would reform the system and give decisions back to doctors, Gore argued, Republican leaders in Congress have held up a bill that would guarantee patients more rights.

“Why isn’t it passing?” he asked. “Because there are special interests with a lot of money and a lot of power who don’t want it to pass.”

The Republican Party has received more than $8.6 million in donations during the last three years from groups opposed to the patients’ bill of rights, while Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee, has taken more than $1.4 million from the insurance industry, Gore said.

The Democrat candidate, meanwhile, has taken $285,000 in donations from insurance companies, a Gore spokesman said.

Gore supports a bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.), a dentist, and Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), that offers patients a long list of protections, including guaranteed payment for emergency care, the right to see specialists and the right to sue a health plan in state court.

That measure passed the House last year but failed in the Senate by one vote. Congressional Republican leaders favor a more modest alternative measure backed by the insurance industry.

Gore for two days has argued that the ties between Congress and such special interest groups--along with a link to Gov. Bush--constitute an “iron triangle” that thwarts attempts to control business.

The business groups that donate to Bush’s campaign, Gore argued, also control the Republican leaders and are preventing Congress from passing a higher minimum wage, environmental cleanup laws and a prescription drug benefit.

“Will Gov. Bush take his direction from them, the powerful, or will he serve the people?” he asked Tuesday.

The Bush campaign has mocked the vice president’s new tactic, saying that his own administration bears responsibility for failing to get bipartisan support on these issues. The Republican’s campaign released a statement Tuesday detailing a series of patient protection reforms the Texas governor signed into law in 1997.

“Gov. Bush understands that Americans are looking for a do-something leader, not a blame-somebody-else politician,” said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett. “Instead of shifting blame for his administration’s failures, Al Gore should follow Gov. Bush’s lead and work in a bipartisan fashion to get things done.”

Bush has reservations about both the bipartisan effort and the Republican alternative. Bush worries that the bill Gore supports would supersede protections states have already put in place. The alternative introduced by Republicans was “too limited,” Bartlett said.

However, Bartlett added, the governor “understands that there are good provisions included in both bills and that the Congress will seek compromise.”

Gore aides are hoping that the vice president’s populist call will bolster his standing with liberal Democrats and paint Bush as an extreme right-winger being held prisoner by big business.

Speaking in this hot and hazy Arkansas capital, Gore also hoped to boost support in the swing state that former Gov. Bill Clinton easily won in 1992 and 1996. A Republican poll taken in Arkansas at the end of June showed Bush with a 10-percentage-point lead.