Uninsured rise

One-fifth of all Californians under age 65 were without health insurance for all or some of 2007, according to a survey released Monday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Jerry Berrios in the Daily News.

While that was down slightly from 2005, health-care officials aren't celebrating the news because they fear the numbers will rise this year and next due to the weakening economy.

"It's already worse - we just don't have a way to measure it," said E. Richard Brown, the UCLA center's director and the brief's lead author. "With the current economic drop into the tank, we can definitely expect that this trend will be dramatically reversed."