During the years 1989-1993, the proportion of the population under 65 with no health insurance rose from 16.2 percent in 1989 to 18.2 percent in 1993, as employers provided less coverage to workers.

Over the course of the next four years the number of uninsured workers continued to increase, reaching 18.4 percent in 1998. The number of uninsured children also grew, to 15.6 percent of the population the same year.

One of the biggest factors contributing to the rising rates of those without health insurance was passage of the so-called welfare reform bill that Clinton signed into law in 1996. Programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children were eliminated and, with the states following the federal government's lead, hundreds of thousands were cut off from welfare benefits, including Medicaid coverage.

In a related development, a number of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) announced they will be canceling insurance coverage for more than 700,000 Medicare beneficiaries next year. This comes on top of the dropping of an additional 734,000 Medicare recipients by HMOs over the past two years.

Many elderly people have joined health maintenance organizations to get outpatient drug benefits not available under Medicare. Once they're dropped from HMO rolls, this benefit will be ended.

Medicare provides health coverage for 39 million people who are elderly or disabled. About 6.2 million of them, or 16 percent, are also in HMOs.