$700 Billion Price Put on Health Plan Taxes, Savings from Medicare, Medicaid to Help Fund Program

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If enacted, President Bill Clinton's health-care reform plan would cost the federal government an estimated $700 billion over five years, administration officials and congressional sources said Thursday.

Of that, $105 billion would come from new taxes on cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and some large corporations.

About $285 billion would be funded from savings realized by imposing caps on Medicare, Medicaid and other publicly funded health programs and by using that previously budgeted money to subsidize the cost of health premiums for small firms and low-income workers. The plan would cut the projected rate of growth of Medicare and Medicaid by about …