Giuliani Fights Democrats Over Health Plans

WASHINGTON — Even before he lays out his presidential health care agenda officially this morning, Mayor Giuliani is already fighting with Democrats over whose approach is better able to address what many have called a system in crisis.

Campaigning yesterday in New Hampshire, Mr. Giuliani likened the health care strategies of the leading Democratic presidential candidates to that of the filmmaker Michael Moore, while the Democratic National Committee said the former mayor's plan would protect the pharmaceutical industry over uninsured Americans.

Mr. Giuliani's proposal focuses on expanding coverage through the private market by combining tax deductions and vouchers with less regulation.

He opposes insurance mandates favored by many Democrats, and he routinely decries their plans for "universal health care" as an attempt to increase the role of government dramatically.

"The way to fix it is not to go in the direction of Michael Moore or Hillary Clinton or John Edwards and Barack Obama," he said yesterday in New Hampshire. "You don't want to fix health care by ruining American health care. You want to move it in the direction of a much larger private plan rather than the absolutely wrong direction the Democrats want to [go]."

"Only Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama want to go to Cuba for health care," he added, linking the top Democrats to Mr. Moore's recent documentary, "Sicko," in which he takes a group of ailing ground zero rescue workers to Cuba.

Democrats contend that Mr. Giuliani's approach won't do enough to cover the estimated 45 million Americans who lack health insurance.

The DNC responded yesterday by assailing Mr. Giuliani's commitment to expanded health coverage as "laughable," citing his ties to drug companies through consultant work he did for the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America.

"It's clear that Rudy Giuliani's health care plan will protect the interests of pharmaceutical companies rather than provide Americans with needed comprehensive health care coverage," a committee spokeswoman, Karen Finney, said. His industry ties, she said, show that his commitment to health care is "nothing more than empty rhetoric."

Also yesterday, the Giuliani campaign announced a team of health policy advisers led by scholars at top conservative think tanks.

They include a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Daniel Kessler; the president of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, Sally Pipes; a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Dr. David Gratzer; the chief of neuroradiology at Stanford Medical School, Dr. Scott Atlas; and a former budget adviser to President Reagan, Donald Moran.