‘Reagan-Bush Administration’ Charged With Indifference : Dukakis, Bentsen Urge Prenatal, Rural Health Plans

In carefully coordinated messages, the Democratic running mates on Wednesday each proposed a health-care program intended to plug a hole in the social safety net and sharply criticized the “Reagan-Bush Administration” for indifference and neglect that they said made the new programs necessary.

Presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis, decrying the nation’s infant mortality rate, called for a program to care for 200,000 pregnant women who are not now covered by health insurance and who would not come under the mandatory insurance plan that he proposed a day earlier.

In announcing the proposal on a hospital stage here in his hometown, Dukakis--flanked by mothers, babies and his pregnant daughter-in-law, Lisa--said the program would be modeled after one set up in Massachusetts three years ago, named “Healthy Start.” The Massachusetts governor said it had helped lower the rate of infant deaths there by 14.3% from 1986 to 1987.

Vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen, meanwhile, campaigning in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, outlined a proposal to improve the quality of health care in rural America. Charging that Reagan Administration “indifference” had put rural communities at risk, Bentsen said the Democrats would take steps to “stem the tide” of hospital closures in rural regions and encourage health professionals to work there.

“We know what it means when a rural hospital closes its doors,” said Bentsen, a Texas senator. “It means that some children die who could be saved. It means illness lingers that should be cured. It means despair and recession for rural communities all across America.”

Advisers estimated the cost of the prenatal and rural health programs at $100 million each. But a campaign background paper said the $100-million start-up cost for a national “Healthy Start” program would be recouped within a year by reducing the cost to hospitals of caring for seriously ill infants--costs that the government now ends up responsible for if the mother is uninsured.

“The cost of prenatal care--care that can prevent an infant from being born with an abnormally low birth weight--can be as little as $400,” Dukakis said Wednesday. “But the cost of caring for that person over a lifetime of illness--illness that could and must be prevented--can reach $400,000.”

In outlining his plan, Dukakis heaped more criticism on what he referred to as the “Reagan-Bush” Administration’s attempts to cut federal spending on Medicaid, immunization and maternal and child health-care programs.

“When children and their families have needed a helping hand,” Dukakis charged, Vice President George Bush’s Administration “has given them a cold shoulder.”

“Mr. Bush said the other day he was ‘almost haunted’ by the way some children live in America today, but he says that we can’t solve their problems,” Dukakis said. “Lloyd Bentsen and I think we can, and, beginning on Jan. 20, 1989, we’re going to begin.”

The U.S. mortality rate is higher than that of 18 other countries, Dukakis said, partly because more than 12 million American children grow up “without a dime’s worth of health insurance.”

Bentsen announced the rural health plan from a flag-draped high school auditorium in Hale Center, Tex. Democrats arranged to have the event beamed via satellite to small-town television stations across the country, and Bentsen made a point of emphasizing his own country roots.

“I understand this way of life,” said Bentsen, who was born to a wealthy ranching family in McAllen, Tex., “and I want to see it elevated and preserved.”

Aside from estimating the cost of the program at $100 million, Bentsen and his staff provided few specifics. They sought instead to emphasize the priority the Democrats had given to rural voters, sending what Bentsen called “a message of hope for millions of rural families struggling to maintain their way of life.”

“We may be trying to do substance without massive detail,” said Bentsen campaign spokesman Mike McCurry. “But we are at least on the side of substance.”

Moving on to California later in the day, Bentsen kept his focus on health care. To provide a video complement to Dukakis’ call in Boston for increased spending on prenatal care, he donned surgical gloves and mask to tour a ward for premature babies in Sacramento’s Sutter Memorial Hospital, then took questions from an audience of health professionals.

“For all of the bounty of America, it’s shameful that millions of our children must face illness without proper medicine or proper care,” Bentsen said.

Bentsen criticized Bush and his running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, for their records of opposition to Democratic efforts to increase spending on health care. “It’s OK to vote against something and call yourself a conservative,” Bentsen said, “but America pays a very heavy price for neglecting health care for its children.”

In his Texas appearance, by contrast, Bentsen’s remarks had been devoid of critical references to Bush. The reticence appeared to reflect an effort to avoid alienating the conservative Democrats Bentsen hopes to attract.

Bentsen wound up his day at a boisterous rally in downtown Fresno, where he pronounced California “the big banana” and “the big enchilada” in the presidential campaign.

“Forty-seven electoral votes,” Bentsen said, “terribly important to winning this race . . . . With your help, we’ll have California in the electoral column and Mike Dukakis in the White House.”

Paul Houston reported from Brookline, Mass., and Douglas Jehl from Hale Center, Tex., and Sacramento.

If Sunday’s debate is half as contentious as the debate over the debate, it will be one of the liveliest ones ever. Page 39.