WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush is expected to propose a health care initiative in his State of the Union address to help the uninsured and the underinsured, White House advisers said on Friday.

It was unclear how much the initiative, to be announced in the address on Tuesday, would cost at a time when Mr. Bush is under pressure because of a growing budget deficit. But White House officials have made clear that they do not want to cede the politically potent issue of health care to the Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom have made health care a centerpiece of their campaigns.

"One of the main drivers of a significant section of the uninsured in America is because of the rising costs of health care," a senior administration official said Friday in a briefing to reporters. "And those can be addressed from several different ways, which he'll talk about on Tuesday."

Mr. Bush has already proposed an $89 billion, 10-year package of tax credits for the uninsured, which is many times less than the health plans of the Democrats.

In a pre-emptive critique of Mr. Bush's speech, the two leading Democrats in Congress delivered their own assessment of the condition of the nation on Friday, including criticism of what one of them, Senator Tom Daschle, called a growing gap in health care.

"The American people have a right to ask, `Mr. President, how do you intend to make health care more affordable, and more available?' " Mr. Daschle, of South Dakota, said in a speech at the National Press Club.

Another "pre-rebuttal" to the State of the Union address was given at the press club by Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

"Mr. President, America's families are hurting," Ms. Pelosi, of California, said. "But you are not helping. In fact, you are making it harder for American families to prosper. Yours is a government of the few, by the few, for the few."

The speeches drew immediate criticism from Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House Republican leader, whose office issued a statement saying: "Sad as it is to say, Democrat leaders only agree on two things: they hate President Bush, and they want to raise your taxes. After three years of sitting on the sidelines and booing from the bleachers, this is all they can come up with? All they have to offer is a creepy, Orwellian mantra: Bush bad, taxes good."

Administration officials said Mr. Bush's address would also call for making billions of dollars in recently enacted tax cuts permanent over the next 10 years. In addition, the president will again push his longstanding plan to create personal investment accounts for Social Security, the advisers said.

Mr. Bush will open his nationally televised prime-time address with an update on the administration's campaign against terrorism and on national security, his strongest issue against the Democrats. He will then move into domestic policy.

Last year Mr. Bush did the opposite — he began with domestic policy and ended with foreign policy — but that was because he used the speech to make the case for military action against Iraq, the official said. The balance was struck for dramatic purposes as much as anything, the official suggested.

"Try to imagine flipping it the other way in which you have that very somber address about a nation at war, and go, Now, let's turn to the economy," the offical said. "It's just, you almost — you almost had to end on that point."

In her pre-rebuttal, Ms. Pelosi said that Mr. Bush had alienated important allies and that Americans were suffering "the dangerous consequences of the president's distorted priorities" overseas.

"In the State of the Union, President Bush must explain how he plans to restore America's standing in the eyes of the world," Ms. Pelosi said.

She said Mr. Bush's policy toward Iraq had been "marked by confusion and uncertainty," and called the president's antiterrorism campaign "strategically unfocused."

"Never before has a president done so much, so fast, to undermine our relations with other nations," Ms. Pelosi said, adding, "As a nation, we must do more than show our strength. We must show our greatness."