LEHRER: All right, the next question will be asked by Anne Groer and it will go the Vice President. You have two minutes to answer, sir.

GROER: Mr. Vice President, you've said you want a kinder, gentler presidency, one that helps the less fortunate. Today, 37 million Americans including many working families with aging parents and young children cannot afford any health insurance, but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. What will you do to provide protection for them and how will you pay for it?

BUSH: One thing I will not do is sock every business in the country and, thus, throw some people out of work. I want to keep this economic recovery going. More Americans at work today than any time in history, a greater percentage of the work force. What I will do is permit people to buy into Medicaid. I believe that's the answer. I am proud to have been part of an administration that past the first catastrophic health bill. And in that there are some Medicaid provisions that will be very helpful to the very kind of people we're talking about here. But we've got to keep going forward without killing off the engine and throwing people out of work. So, the answer lies, it seems to me, in full enforcement of the catastrophic program. It lies to me in flexibility in Medicaid so people at the lowest end can buy in there and get their needs covered and then it also - I do not want to see us mandate across the board that every company has to do this, because I really think that marginal operators are going to go say, "We can't make it." And I think then you're going to see that people are put out of work. All these programs - and this cost on his - is - was - I saw an estimate, I'd love to know what he thinks, $35 - $40 billion - and it seems to me that somebody pays that. There isn't any such thing as something free out there. It either gets passed along as increased prices or it gets passed along by people being put out of work so the business can continue to compete. So, I think we ought to do it in the Medicaid system. I think we ought to do it by full enforcement of the catastrophic health insurance. I think we ought to do it by everybody doing what they can do out of conscience. It's a terrible problems in terms of flexibility on private insurance. But I just don't want to mandate it and risk putting this - setting the recovery back.

LEHRER: A rebuttal, Governor?

DUKAKIS: But, George, that's no answer.

BUSH: You don't like the answer, but it's an answer.

DUKAKIS: Well, no, it's no answer to those 37 million people, most of them members of working families who don't have a dime of health insurance and don't know how to pay the bills if their kids get sick at night. I was in Houston on Tuesday meeting with a group of good citizens, working citizens. All of them with little or no health insurance. One of them was a father who had been laid off a few months ago and lost his health insurance. Has an 11 year old son and can't let that son compete in sports and Little League, because he's afraid he's going to get hurt and he won't be able to provide health insurance to pay those bills. My state just became the only state in the nation to provide for universal health care and we did it with the support of the business community and labor and the health care community and with virtually everybody in the state. The fact of the matter is that employers who today are insuring their employees are paying the freight, because they're paying for those who aren't. And I think it's time that when you got a job in this country it came with health insurance. That's the way we're going to provide basic health security for all of the citizens of this country of ours.

LEHRER: Follow-up, Anne?

GROER: Yes. Since your Massachusetts health plan has been attacked by the Vice President and you have defended it in this way, I would like to move on to perhaps one of the most costly medical catastrophes facing Americans today and that is AIDS. In - at the end of September, the thousands of AIDS patients will lose their access to AZT, which is the only Federally approved drug for treatment of the disease. Now, I'd like to now, sir, if - what your position is on extending that and what it is you think the government ought to be doing about making AZT and other drugs available to people who are suffering from this disease.

DUKAKIS: Well, Anne, let me just say before I answer your question that I didn't know that the Vice President attacked our program in Massachusetts. I hope he hasn't. Because has won the support of a great many people all over the state and I think it's a model for what I hope we can do across the country. But when I proposed my plan this past Tuesday, he or one of his spokesmen called it socialized medicine. The last time the Vice President used that phrase, I suspect he remembers it, don't you? It was in 1964 and that's what he called Medicare. Well, he was wrong then and he's wrong now. (Applause)

LEHRER: If I may interrupt at this point and caution the audience as I did before we went on the air, please hold it down. You're only taking time away from your candidate when you do that. Governor, continue, please.

DUKAKIS: Let me say this about AIDS. It's the single most important public health crisis, single most important public health emergency we've had in our lifetimes and I think there are a number of things we have to do including supporting legislation which is now moving through the Congress, which will commit this nation to the resources to find a cure which will provide broad education and prevention, which will provide sensitive and caring treatment for the victims of AIDS. I think we have to demonstrate some flexibility and I think the FDA is attempting to do so now in trying to make it possible for new and experimental drugs to be available to people who are at risk at AIDS and I would hope that we could bring that kind of a policy to bear beginning in January. And I would encourage the current administration to proceed with that kind of flexibility where it's appropriate and where it's done carefully and responsibly. But we have not had the kind of leadership we should have had. In this particular area, I think the Vice President and I are in general agreement on what we have to do. The special Federal commission made good solid recommendations. I think we're both supportive of them and I would strongly lead in that area as I have in my state as Governor.

LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, a minute of rebuttal.

BUSH: Well, we're on the right track. The NIH is doing a good job in research. The Surgeon General is doing a good job in encouraging the proper kind of education. I notice that the Governor did not mention any testing. But we got to have a knowledge base. Testing should be confidential, but we have to have a knowledge. We can't simply stick our heads in the sands in terms of testing. I'm Chairman of the President's Task Force on Regulatory Relief and we are working with the FDA and they have sped up bringing drugs to market that can help. And you got to be careful here, because there's a safety factor, but I think these things - and then also I am one who believes we've got to go the extra mile in clean - being sure that that blood supply is pure. We cannot have a lack of confidence in the blood supply when it comes to operations and surgery and things of this nature. So, research, speeding the drugs to market, testing, blood supply are very important elements of this.

LEHRER: Next question will be asked by Peter Jennings. It goes to the Governor.

JENNINGS: Good evening, Mr. Vice President, Governor. Governor, one theme that keeps coming up about the way you govern - you've both mentioned leadership tonight, so I'd like to stay with that for a second. The theme that keeps coming up about the way you govern is passionless, technocratic -

DUKAKIS: Passionless?

JENNINGS: Passionless, technocratic, the smartest clerk in the world. Your critics maintain that in the 1960's your public passion was not the war in Vietnam or civil rights, but no fault auto insurance. And they say in the 1970's you played virtually no role in the painful busing crisis in Boston. Given the fact that a president must sometimes lead by sheer inspiration and passion. We need to know if this is a fair portrait of your governing or if it is a stereotype. And if it isn't fair, give us an example of where you have had that passion and leadership that sometimes a president needs?

LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, a rebuttal.

BUSH: Well, I don't question his passion. I question - and I don't question his concern about the war in Vietnam. He introduced or supported legislation back then that suggested that kids of Massachusetts should be exempt from going overseas in that war. Now, that's a certain passion that in my view it's misguided passion. He - we have a big difference on issues. You see, last year in the primary, he expressed his passion. He said, "I am a strong liberal Democrat" - August, '87. Then he said, "I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU." That was what he said. He is out there on out of the mainstream. He is very passionate. My argument with the governor is, do we want this country to go that far left. And I wish we had time to let me explain. But I salute him for his passion. We just have a big difference on where this country should be led, and in what direction it ought to go. (Applause)

LEHRER: Peter, a question? Question for the vice president, Peter.

JENNINGS: I'd actually like to follow up if I may on this mention you've made of his card carrying membership in the American Civil Liberties Union. You've used the phrase "card carrying" so many times since Governor Dukakis first acknowledged that he was a card carrying member of the ACLU that some people have come to believe that you've used it to brand him in some way, to identify him as people were identified in the 1950's as less than patriotic. I'd like to know why you keep repeating the phrase, and what's the important issue here? What is so wrong with the governor being a member of an organization which has come to the defense of, among other people, Colonel Oliver North?

BUSH: Nothings wrong with it. But just take a look at the positions of the ACLU. But, Peter, please understand, the liberals do not like me talking about liberal They don't like it when I say that he says he's a card carrying member. Now, if that quote was wrong, he can repudiate it, right here. I've seen it authoritatively written twice, and if I've done him an injustice, and he didn't say it, I'm very, very sorry. But I don't agree with a lot of - most of the positions of the ACLU. I simply don't want to see the ratings on movies. I don't want my ten year old grandchild to go into an X-rated movie. I like those ratings systems. I don't think they're right to try to take the tax exemption away from the Catholic Church. I don't want to see the kiddie pornographic laws repealed; I don't want to see "under God" come out from our currency. Now, these are all positions of the ACLU. And I don't agree with them. He has every right to exercise his passion, as what he said, a strong, progressive liberal. I don't agree with that. I come from a different point. And I think I'm more in touch with the mainstream of America. They raised the same thing with me on the Pledge of Allegiance. You see, I'd have found a way to sign that bill. Governor Thompson of Illinois did. I'm not questioning his patriotism. He goes out and says the man is questioning my patriotism. And then all the liberal columnists join in. I am not. I am questioning his judgment on these matters, or where he's coming from He has every right to do it. But I believe that's not what the American people want, and when he said, when he said at the convention, ideology doesn't matter, just competence, he was moving away from his own record, from what his passion has been over the years. And that's all I'm trying to do, is put it in focus. And I hope people don't think that I'm questioning his patriotism when I say he used his words to describe his participation in that organization.

LEHRER: Governor, a response.

DUKAKIS: Well, I hope this is the first and last time I have to say this. Of course, the vice president is questioning my patriotism. I don't think there's any question about that, and I resent it. I resent it. My parents came to this country as immigrants. They taught me that this was the greatest country in the world. I'm in public service because I love this country. I believe in it. And nobody's going to question my patriotism as the vice president has now repeatedly. The fact of the matter is if the Pledge of Allegiance was the acid test of one's patriotism--the vice president's been the presiding officer in the United States Senate for the past seven and a half years. To the best of my knowledge he's never once suggested that a session of the Senate begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. (Applause)

Mr. Bush, I don't question your patriotism. When you're attacked for your military record, I immediately said it was inappropriate, it had no place in this campaign, and I rejected it. I would hope that from this point on, we get to the issues that affect the vast majority of Americans, jobs, schools, health care, housing, the environment. Those are the concerns of the people that are watching us tonight. Not labels that we attach to each other, questions about each other's patriotism and loyalty.

LEHRER: The time is up, governor. Let's go now to John Mashek, again. A question for the vice president.

MASHEK: Mr. Vice President, in a debate during the Republican primaries, you said most of the nation's homeless are suffering from mental illness, an assertion immediately challenged by one of your rivals. Estimates of the homeless range from a low of 250,000 by the government, to around three million, including working families and their children. What commitment are you willing to make tonight to this voiceless segment of our society?

BUSH: I want to see the McKinney Act fully funded. I believe that that would help in terms of shelter. I want to see - when I talked at our convention about a thousand points of light, I was talking about the enormous numbers of shelters and organizations that help. The governor's wife has been very active in the homeless. My campaign chairman, Secretary Jim Baker's wife. This isn't government. These are people that care, that are trying to give of themselves. The government has a role. It is to fully fund the McKinney Act. There are certain army bases that the act calls for that can be used in certain cases to shelter people when it's rough. And so I think that we're on the right track. I don't see this, incidentally, as a Democrat or a Republican or a liberal or conservative idea. I see an involvement by a thousand points of light. I see the funding that is required, and I hope the Congress will fully fund this bill. They gave it a great deal of conscience and a great deal of work. And we're on the track on this one. But - and I, look, mental - that was a little overstated it. I'd say around 30 percent. And I think maybe we could look back over our shoulders and wonder whether it was right to let all those mental patients out. Maybe we need to do a better job in mental clinics to help them. Because there is a major problem there. A lot of them are mentally sick. And we've got to attend to them. But fully, my short range answer is fully fund that McKinney Act.

LEHRER: Governor, a response.

DUKAKIS: Well, this is another fundamental difference that I have with the vice president, just as I do in the case of health care for 37 million members of working families in this country who don't have health insurance. The problem, Mr. Bush, is that you've cut back by 90 percent on our commitment to affordable housing for families of low and moderate income. And when you do that, you've have homeless families. We didn't have two and a half million, or three million homeless people living on streets and in doorways in this country ten years ago. We've got to begin to get back to the business of building and rehabilitating housing for families of low and moderate income in this country; housing for young families that they can look forward some day to buy. We've got communities in this country increasingly where our own kids can't afford to live in the communities that they grew up in. That's an essential commitment. And I think the housing community is ready. But it's going to take a president who's committed to housing, who's had experience in building and rehabilitating housing who understands that affordable housing for families of low and moderate income, for young families, first time home buyers, is an essential part of the American dream. And while I'm all for the McKinney bill, that, by itself, simply won't do. We've got to have a president that can lead on this issue, that can work with the Congress, and I'm prepared to do so. This is one of the most important priorities that faces this country.