January 23, 1994

ONE by one the women face the camera. "I would never want to be less than 40," says an unidentified 44-year-old. "It's so much more fun now."

LISA DAVIS still seems to have a feeling of helplessness that catches in her throat when she relates the events of Sept. 5, 1991. That was the last time she dared set foot in the exclusive North Jersey town of Millburn. It was on that autumn day, late in the afternoon, that she ran astray of the Millburn police when a conductor refused to let her board a New Jersey Transit train after a fare dispute.

LET'S say you buy a company, putting down a few million and borrowing billions. Through fees and management contracts, you take out of it more than you invested. The company proceeds to lose almost $2 billion, avoiding bankruptcy only through concessions by workers, suppliers and creditors. Even so, your company faces the prospect of massive debt repayments within a few years, with little indication that operations can hope to generate the needed cash.

Talk about ripple effects. One building near Fifth Avenue changes hands and, suddenly, it's mini-musical chairs along Park Avenue.

The House and the Senate come back to work on Tuesday expecting to be judged on how they deal with health care, the biggest domestic issue Congress has confronted in three decades. It may even prove to be the most complicated task that Congress has ever faced, involving far more crosscurrents than the civil rights bills of the 1960's or the economic measures of the New Deal. And before the issue actually comes to the floor in either House, it must make its way past scores of conflicting interest groups like the elderly, the hospitals and the various factions of the insurance industry, and through five major Congressional committees.