BOSTON – U.S. Rep. Tom Allen of Maine touted John Kerry’s health care plan Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention, saying it would provide relief to families and small-business owners while halving the number of America’s uninsured.

With the convention in its third day, Allen took his turn at the podium to turn delegates’ attention to health care issues.

He said Mainers are telling him “in increasingly anxious and insistent voices: ‘We must have help to provide our families and employees with health insurance. We cannot afford the health care we need.”‘

The congressman said that for the last four years, “their voices, their pleas for help, have not been heard in the White House. But John Kerry hears your voices, and I say today: Help is on the way!”

Earlier, Maine delegates led by Gov. John Baldacci pitched in at a Boston food bank after hearing a call to action by Ann Richards, who preceded George W. Bush as Texas governor, and had a surprise visit at breakfast by celebrity Rob Reiner.

Allen said small business owners who are struggling with health care costs should vote for Kerry because the Democratic presidential candidate has a plan to reduce their insurance premiums.

Kerry’s health care plan also expands coverage to those who lack it, Allen said.

It would hold down premiums by having the federal government absorb the risk for catastrophic medical expenses, said Allen. That would decrease risks for the industry, said Allen, Maine’s four-term 1st District congressman from Portland.

“We simply can’t afford as a country to have 43 million people without health insurance, so we have to expand coverage dramatically, and his plan would do that,” Allen said in an interview prior to his speech.

A Republican health insurance plan would extend coverage to only 300,000 to 500,000 people, Allen said, while Kerry’s plan would cover more than half of the uninsured.

At the Greater Boston Food Bank, Baldacci led about 25 of Maine’s 35 delegates including state Attorney General Steven Rowe and U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, as they packed boxes in assembly-line fashion.

One of the volunteers, state Rep. Elaine Makas of Lewiston, said the Boston convention is different from the party’s gathering in 2000 in Los Angeles, which she also attended as a delegate.

“There’s a sense of urgency,” Makas said. “People are really coming together.”