And he has termed his home state of Massachusetts, which last April enacted a health-insurance program, "the nation's pathfinder," pointing the way toward a national health-care system.

In the other, Mr. Ferrer says Mr. Abrams will fight for a health-insurance program "guaranteeing everyone's right to medicine."

Farmers in some brigades established voluntary health-insurance programs but had difficulty organizing and administering them.

It also contains $13 million to begin a new health-insurance program for children.

Republicans support a proposal put forth by Mr. Bush to have Washington provide $3 billion to the states for them to use as they wish on health-insurance programs.

He speaks of increasing federal spending for education and expanding federal health-insurance programs, for example.

Some suggested they might be an inexpensive way to cover the uninsured even after some kind of national health-insurance program was established.

The bill was intended to expand the number of children and adults covered by the state's health-insurance program for the poor.

This was Ronald Reagan, in 1961, speaking in opposition to an early version of Medicare, the big federal health-insurance program for senior citizens.