Foley Cautious on Health Package : Legislation: House Speaker predicts that all of Clinton’s reforms will not be enacted before the end of the year.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) predicted Saturday that Congress will not enact all of President Clinton’s health care reforms before the end of the year.

“It would be very optimistic, very impressive if we could enact the program entirely this year,” Foley said in an interview of CNN’s “Evans & Novak” program. “It’s a process that I think may have to be finished next year. But that’s just a guess, a speculation. I haven’t seen an actual proposal.”

On Friday, White House officials outlined the broad structure of the Administration’s health care reform. They said the new system would provide insurance and access to medical care for all Americans through a nationally mandated package of benefits. The actual benefits would probably be determined by a national board following guidelines set in legislation.

Final decisions on the form of the proposal will be made in the coming weeks. Clinton had promised to unveil it by May 3, but officials now say it is not expected to be released until late May.

The last element to be decided will probably be how to pay for universal coverage. There is no way to put a price tag on the program in its unfinished form, although Administration analysts have estimated it will cost between $30 billion and $90 billion.

Foley said Saturday that he expects health care reform to cost taxpayers between $50 billion and $100 billion.

Health care reform is one of Clinton’s two major legislative initiatives. He already faces major difficulty in Congress on the other big element, his economic stimulus package.

The Administration had hoped for fast approval of the $16.3-billion spending portion of the stimulus package--the cornerstone of the President’s economic plan--but a Republican filibuster trapped the bill in the Senate.

Foley said that the White House must accept some painful compromises to win passage of the $16.3-billion proposal when Congress returns on April 19. He suggested that reduced spending in several areas may be part of the price of approval.

Failure to enact some form of the economic stimulus package would be “totally unacceptable,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has led the opposition, arguing that the package would increase the federal deficit and raise taxes too much to pay for projects that in many instances are frivolous.

The White House has said Clinton hopes to use the Easter recess to persuade five moderate Republican senators to change their stance, opening the way for an end to the filibuster.

The other key element of Clinton’s stimulus proposal is in trouble, too, as leading Democrats have indicated a proposed investment tax credit for businesses is unlikely to win approval from Congress.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Saturday that he believes the President’s $21-billion investment tax credit plan has a bleak future in Congress. Moynihan’s counterpart in the House, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), expressed uncertainty about its prospects for approval.

Moynihan told the Associated Press on Saturday that Congress would probably not approve the tax credits, which are intended to enable large companies to buy more equipment, creating more jobs. He said the credits would conflict with the Administration’s plans for $272 billion in tax increases.

A spokesman for Rostenkowski said that the chairman is wary of the tax credits, but he declined to predict whether the measure will ultimately pass.

Foley acknowledged that the tax credit does not have widespread support in Congress, but he said he still hopes some version of the measure can be approved.

“I personally favor it,” Foley said. “I think it’s a good idea to have an investment tax credit to stimulate the kind of purchase of equipment and plant that’s needed to move our industry forward in productivity.”

Support for Clinton’s economic plan has dropped from a high in the 70% range to 57%, according to a Gallup poll completed Friday for Newsweek magazine.

Clinton’s job-approval rating also declined, from 58% in a Gallup poll completed 10 days after the Feb. 17 announcement of his economic plan to 49% in the latest poll.