OK, that's not what I'd have expected to hear.
I recently restarted playing this, and am patched all the way up to and including the MPP.
I don't ever get any enemy health bars. Where exactly do these appear?
This was added with Morrowind's first patch. You must be using a "first edition" Morrowind disc from May, 2002. If you patch your game or, as NaxoX9 says, install one of the expansions you'll see an enemy health bar.