That is fueling alarm among hospitals and insurance companies, which have made universal coverage a condition of their support. On Monday, the insurance industry stepped up its warnings that leaving a large segment of the population without coverage would accelerate the rise in premiums for everyone else. The bill that has emerged from the Senate Finance Committee would leave some 17 million people uninsured. But leading Democrats are standing behind a series of compromises worked out by the committee that are designed to control the cost of government subsidies for consumers forced to buy insurance. They say the approach -- which would keep the cost of the legislation under its 10-year target of $900 billion -- is necessary to attract the moderate and conservative votes vital for passage. 'I'd like more (insurance coverage),' said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., who over the summer shepherded a version of the bill proposed by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., through the Senate Health Committee. 'But that's a pretty good start ... Senator Kennedy was a great advocate of the idea that you do the best that you can.' The bill that comes out of the Finance committee must be reconciled with the health panel's version before the legislation can be brought to the full chamber for a vote. A similar effort is under way in the House. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman and a leading author of that chamber's health care bill, also said that compromises over how many Americans and legal immigrants would be covered may be necessary. There are 40 million without insurance, excluding illegal immigrants. 'The effort to reform health care is a balancing act,' Waxman said Monday. 'And we are limited in how much money we can spend.' Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., a leading member of the Finance committee, said Senate Democrats shared the concern about federal spending. 'We're focused on the budget number,' he said. 'That's the most important number right now.' Liberal lawmakers and consumer groups long have nurtured dreams of covering all Americans. More recently, universal coverage emerged as a key goal of insurance companies and health care providers, who would gain tens of millions of customers. And hospitals would benefit as the number of uninsured patients receiving free care diminished. Industry leaders and health care experts also consider universal coverage as important to making other changes to the health care system -- such as prohibiting insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions and restraining the cost of premiums. 'The larger the insurance pool, the better able you are to spread risk,' said Peter Harbage, a health care consultant who has advised Democrats in Washington. 'If you have universal coverage, you will have the most efficient system and best achieve affordable coverage.' Congressional Democrats have agreed on a series of steps to expand coverage, including a mandate requiring most Americans to obtain insurance and billions of dollars in federal subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people pay premiums. But under pressure to keep the 10-year cost under $900 billion, the Senate Finance Committee bill -- which many consider a kind of centrist template -- limited those subsidies. The legislation being voted on Tuesday includes $463 billion in subsidies over the next decade and would result in 94 percent of Americans having insurance coverage, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That is substantially less than the $773 billion in subsidies that House Democrats have proposed in their health care bill. The CBO estimated that the House bill would achieve near-universal coverage, or about 97 percent of those eligible. About 83 percent currently have health insurance. In addition to devoting less money to subsidies, Senate Finance Committee lawmakers decided to scale back the fines on those who do not buy insurance. The current bill would phase in the fines over five years and limit them to $750 per person or $1,500 per a family. 'They got locked in to spending less than $900 billion,' said Len Nichols, an economist who heads the health care program for the centrist New America Foundation. 'That has required tradeoffs. ... Now, they are in a situation where they have to do the best they can.' That, however, does not sit well with advocacy groups across the spectrum. 'From a moral point of view, we should do better,' AARP legislative director John Rother said Monday. The senior citizens' group has been a leading advocate of expanding coverage. Industry groups too have stepped up their demands to reach higher coverage levels, arguing that leaving 6 percent of eligible people out of the insurance pool was insufficient. 'For market reforms to work, there needs to be full participation,' said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's Washington lobbying arm. On Monday, the group set off a firestorm in Washington with its report that asserted provisions in the Democratic health care bills would make premiums rise faster than they would with no change to the current system. There were few signs, however, that Democrats were being swayed by the critiques. The White House and its allies on Capitol Hill assailed the insurance industry report Monday, arguing that it relied on a series of questionable assumptions about how new taxes and cuts would be passed on to consumers. Dodd, who is playing a key role in combining the Finance committee bill with the legislation his own committee approved, said Democrats would be able to broaden coverage once the legislative battle was over. 'This is going to be an evolving story,' he said. 