CLINTON'S HEALTH-CARE PROPOSAL BURIED

Democratic congressional leaders announced publicly what's been known by Washington insiders for months: that President Clinton's health-care proposal is dead. Senate majority leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley stated that they were working on their own health-care proposal. Clinton said that's fine by him. But the new bill might be quite different from anything the Prez has in mind: Mitchell said today that his plan would be "less bureaucratic, more voluntary and will be phased in over a longer period of time." The Senator also hinted that the plan would require employers to pay only 50 percent of their workers' insurance--a big cut from Clinton's requirement of 80 percent. "One way or the other this is going to require a large tax increase," says Janice Castro, TIME's health-care writer.