7/10/00 1:15 p.m.
Al Gore, Dr. Do-Little
On women's health care, the vice president is all pander.

By Melissa Seckora, NR editorial associate

ith recent polls showing Al Gore's support by women slipping from 49 percent in January to 43 percent in June — now three points behind George W. — Al Gore has set out on a mission to win the so-called women's vote by pushing his agenda on women's health-care reform.

According to his campaign's newly appointed National Director for Women's Outreach, Cindy Wall (a businesswoman, and mother), women will make a "very important difference in helping to elect Al Gore."  Pundits and pollsters are also insisting that Al Gore needs to woo women in order to be the next president. So, voilà: The vice president has a gift for America's women — a promise to use the present prosperity to improve women's health care.

Al Gore claims he will "fight for every woman in the land" by making his agenda for health care reform a top priority in the presidential campaign.

"Women's health care often costs more than men's, even though women have fewer dollars to spend on it," said Gore. "I will fight to see that every woman in this land has access to the quality health coverage she deserves — and can afford the prescription medicines she needs."

  So how does he propose to do this? Get out your calculator. He wants prescription-drug benefits under Medicare to help women afford prescription drugs, to buy food, and to pay rent. He proposes a $3,000 tax credit to make long-term care more affordable. He would create a "National Caregiving and Family Support Initiative" to provide information and respite to caregivers, and to make it easier for people with long-term care needs to live in the community. He vows to fight for increases in mental-health care so women and their families with mental health needs get appropriate care. He promises women his support for their right to choose by promising to "enhance" community-based family-planning services, requiring insurers to cover contraceptives, and reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

Of course, now that he has the cushion of the country's projected budget surplus, Gore can promise almost anything. The problem is, his record on the subject of any health care reform is dismal, at best.

The Bush campaign reports that since Clinton and Gore took office, roughly 20 million women out of 39 million Medicare recipients don't have access to a Medicare prescription-drug benefit. In fact, 3.5 million Americans have joined the Medicare program and all have been denied a Medicare prescription-drug benefit. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of uninsured women has increased by 5 million in the past eight years. And, in 1999, the Clinton-Gore administration vetoed legislation that would have given an immediate 100-percent health-insurance deduction for the self-employed, an above-the-line deduction for health-insurance premiums, a long-term-care insurance deduction, and an elderly-patient-care deduction.

Speaking to a group of seniors and women outside Pittsburgh, the vice president kept his pander-act going. "It makes a difference in the future of health care for women in this country whether or not you have a president who is willing to fight for you and will fight for you," Gore told the audience. He focused on what he claimed were women's diseases: cancer, diabetes, mental illness, and osteoporosis, while underscoring his support for abortion rights.

  Unfortunately for women, Al Gore's latest redefinition scheme is more talk. Al Gore has done nothing to improve health care for any American; with Gore behind in the polls, why should women think they're so special?