Washington (H24N). Vice President Al Gore, on his second leg of a weeklong, nationwide highlight of health-care issues, promised Tuesday in a town hall meeting to insure all American children if he were elected president.

Gore told an audience in Albuquerque, N.M., that as president he would work to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), eventually implementing universal health care for all children. The program would cover an estimated 11 million uninsured children by the year 2005 at a cost of $100 billion over a 10-year period.

"In this time of unimaginable medical breakthroughs, there are still 11 million uninsured children in America," Gore said in prepared remarks. "I'm fighting to move to the day when every single one of them gets access to health coverage."

Implementation of Gore's program would allow a family of four making less than $41,000 a year to buy into the CHIP program or opt for Medicaid coverage for their children through their state. The program would also mandate that states inform parents of their children's eligibility for the program.

The vice president also explained that in many of those families with children eligible for the CHIP program the parents are uninsured, so he proposed adding a provision to expand the program to include 7 million parents.

Gore's proposals met with sharp criticism from his Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and the Bush campaign, which released a statement before Gore's appearance comparing the current administration's record on health-related issues with the recent proposals.

"Under Al Gore's watch, there are 2.4 million more uninsured children in America because the Clinton-Gore administration's effort to nationalize health care was soundly rejected by the American people in 1993," said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett. "Al Gore should explain why his administration has not addressed the concerns of our nation's governors that the federal bureaucracy in Washington is making it 'impossible' for states to create better programs to insure more children."

Gore didn't let his appearance go by without pointing out the shortcomings he sees in his opponent's record.

While recognizing that roughly 11 million children in America are without insurance, Gore pointed out that "1.4 million of those children" live in Texas.

"As governor of Texas, Bush has a poor record on children's health insurance," Gore said. "Bush fought efforts to expand health insurance to 220,000 Texas children through CHIP, a program that has already insured 2 million children nationwide."

Shining the spotlight on children's health in Texas could not come at a worse time for Bush. Just this week a children's health insurance program created by the state but run in a private-public partnership announced it would stop providing the service.

Bush touted the benefits of the Texas Healthy Kids Corp., which used a combination of public funds and tax incentives. Texas Healthy Kids announced it would end coverage on Sept. 15 and instead would refer customers to private and public health insurers, like CHIP.

Failure of the program will affect some 8,000 children whose parents initially earned too much to qualify for the CHIP program but either weren't offered insurance through their employers or could not afford coverage.

Gore also went on to lambaste Bush for not offering specifics on his health-care proposals. He told the people in the audience that they "deserve" to hear the specifics of Bush's proposals. Discussion of the campaigns' health-care proposals are expected to continue throughout the week as Gore continues his weeklong focus.

Meanwhile, Bush will continue a swing through key battleground states, focusing on education.

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