US President George W. Bush spent Thursday battling to take Pennsyl-vania out of the Democratic column by seeking support from Roman Catholic voters and mocking Sena-tor John Kerry's health care plan as an "overpriced albatross."
Bush struck the themes in a daylong swing through a state that Al Gore won in 2000 and where Kerry has held a slight lead in polls.
PHOTO: AP
Pennsylvania is widely considered as essential to Kerry's prospects of winning an Electoral College majority as Florida is to Bush's chances.
PHOTO: AP
It was Bush's 40th trip to Pennsylvania since becoming president, and he was to appear in the state again yesterday, rebutting talk among Democrats that he is preparing to concede its 21 electoral votes.
With about a third of the voters in the state Catholic, one of the highest proportions in the country, Bush arranged to meet Cardinal Justin Rigali, the head of the Philadelphia Archdiocese who has been quoted as saying Catholics have a "duty and responsibility" to vote for candidates who uphold church teachings, especially those opposing abortion.
The meeting was closed to reporters, and the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said only that the two men discussed "shared priorities."
And on a day when Kerry went hunting in Ohio to shore up, as his aides put it, his "guy" credentials, Bush made a particular appeal to women by emphasizing how his plan to limit awards from suits against doctors would help address the difficulties that some regions have in keeping obstetricians and gynecologists.
Appearing in Downingtown, outside Philadelphia, Bush stepped up his attack on Kerry's health plan, saying it was bloated and would put control over medical decisions in the hands of federal bureaucrats.
"The Kerry plan would move America down the road toward federal control of health care, which would lead to lower quality and health care rationing," Bush said. "Other countries have tried centralized health care, and it didn't work. We have great quality health care in America because it is a private-centered system, and I intend to keep it that way."
Kerry's campaign shot back that Bush's record on health care included adding 5 million people to the rolls of the uninsured, big increases in health insurance premiums and high prescription drug prices. Kerry's aides said Bush was again mischaracterizing Kerry's plan, under which the government would pay three-quarters of the cost of the most expensive claims and allow more families to obtain care through Medicaid.
In his speeches, Bush cited excessive malpractice awards against doctors as a cause of rising health costs and blamed litigation for driving some doctors to abandon their practices, especially in specialties like obstetrics that are particularly prone to malpractice claims.
He used that phenomenon to make a case that women would do well to support his approach. Bush has been seeking all year to eat into the traditional Democratic advantage among women, but polls suggest that after some success he has again lost ground to Kerry.
"You have a problem here in the state of Pennsylvania because of these junk lawsuits," Bush told the thousands of people who waited in the rain here to hear him at a rally in a football stadium.
"You're losing too many good docs. Too many ob-gyn's are leaving the practice. Too many pregnant women are wondering whether or not they're going to get the health care they need in order to bring their child into this world," he said.
If suburban women are a pivotal constituency in Pennsylvania, Catholics are another. Kerry, a Catholic, has been under attack from some conservative bishops for his support of abortion rights, and the Bush campaign and its allies have directly and indirectly encouraged church leaders, from Pope John Paul II down, to make clear their stand on the issue.
Asked about the meeting between the cardinal and Bush, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued a statement saying that it had been held "at the request of the president" and that Rigali had "indicated his willingness to meet with both presidential candidates."
The cardinal has not met Kerry, though the archdiocese said the senator had expressed an interest in doing so.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese