RALEIGH - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Friday accused his Democratic rivals... Giuliani says Dems back so

RALEIGH - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Friday accused his Democratic rivals of embracing health care plans that would amount to socialized medicine.

The former New York City mayor, responding to comments made during the first Democratic primary debate Thursday night in Orangeburg, claimed Democrats favor "mandatory" universal health care and the plans would only exacerbate the cost of care by putting the system in the hands of bureaucrats.

"They're moving toward socialized medicine so fast, it'll make your head spin," Giuliani said, adding that private solutions could help bring down the cost of care. "When we want to cover poor people, as we should, we give them vouchers."

Democratic candidates renewed their calls for universal health care during the debate, saying that a new system would help streamline costs and cover the nation's 45 million uninsured.

Among the top-tier Democratic candidates, John Edwards has offered a specific health care plan that would require everyone to have health insurance.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., used the debate to describe a health care plan that would increase coverage by allowing the uninsured to buy into a plan similar to the one for federal employees, improve technology to cut costs and provide government-funded catastrophic insurance to prevent business from going bankrupt when they offer health insurance.

"I'll be darned if I'm going to concede that Democrats care more about poor people than we do," Giuliani told an audience of the North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference during a brief trip to the home state of Edwards, who has made fighting poverty a signature issue.

In response to Giuliani's criticism, Edwards issued a statement, saying, "Rudy Giuliani needs to put an end to his campaign to divide America and concentrate on offering solutions to the big challenges we face."

Earlier this week, Giuliani, who was mayor during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, drew a sharp rebuke from the Democratic candidates for suggesting that the United States could face another major attack if a Democrat is elected in 2008.

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