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Copyright 1993 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., All rights reserved. ' ABC NEWS SHOW: WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS SEPTEMBER 2,11993 LENGTH: 3887 words BODY: ANNOUNCER: From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Sitting in tonight, Diane Sawyer. DIANE SAWYER: Good evening.The countdown for reform of the nation's health care system has begun in earnest. wiff the target date for President Clinton's announcement three weeks away. Today there were more hints about what the plan may, contain and how quickly it might take effect. The White House says the vast majority of Americans will' have guaranteed health coverage by 1996. Coverage for everyone else should be in place two years after that. More from ABC's Jim Ansle. JIM ANGLE: The President also talked about the program's cost today and tried to discourage any notion he'll have to resort to drastic measures such as price controls. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, they never were alive. I never embraced them. They have all- they have been discussed. JIM ANGLE: Under the Clinton plan, every American would be entitled to a package of basic benefits at about the same price regardless of existing,health problems. AIDS patients, for instance, would pay the same as healthy young people. REPRESENTATIVE JIM MCDERMOTT, [D], WASHINGTON: One can design a system where you deliver universal coverage to everyone, but the question is how do you pay for it? JIM ANGLE: One solution in the plan is to raise the so-called "sin taxes": Officials say increased taxes on tobacco and hard liquor will be the only new taxes needed to pay for the plan. But the President wants to subsidize health care premiums for small businesses and their low-income workers, and that will cost some $70 billion a year. The administration has talked about getting some of that from savings in Medicare and Medicaid, which raised fears that benefits would be cut. But today, the President argued that benefits will actually be expanded. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: We're not talking about cutting the programs. We're talking about slowing the rate of increase. We can fund the drug and long-term care programs. JIM ANGLE: Though many analysts are skeptical of the administration's numbers, they say universal care will save the government money.

JOHN SHEILS, HEALTH CARE ANALYST: Where all employers are providing insurance there will automatically be savings to the Medicare and Medicaid' programs. For example, there are lots of working poor who are on the Medicaid program. JIM ANGLE: In all, some S31 billion a year could be saved by shifting insurance costs for the working poor and elderly from the government to their employers. [SU] But that still leaves the administration about $40 billion short, and skeptics are convinced there''s no way for the administration to accomplish its goals without someone having to give up something. Jim Angle, ABC News, Washington.