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Health Planning in the United States Issues in Guideline Development, Report of a Study (1980) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Statement - Clark C. Havighurst
Pages 83-88

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From page 84...
... Even when employed in conjunction with regulatory rate setting for institutions, which is inevitably geared to covering costs, the existing planning mechanism will give the system more resources than it should have, given society's other needs. Federallyimposed arbitrariness would seem to be the logical next step if we are to make planning "work." I do not share the committee's view that the results of health planning should not be too closely scrutinized because the process is well-meaning and in some marginal sense "democratic." The benchmark against which planning must be measured is whether it improves the allocation of resources to and within the health sector.
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From page 85...
... Nevertheless, it is an idea whose time may well be coming -- if one judges by, for example, the references to competition contained in the National Health Planning and Resources Development Amendments of 1979. Those amendments and the the accompanying committee reports, together with Congress's resistance to the proposed hospital cost-containment legislation, reflect a dramatic reversal in the unquestioning drift of public policy toward reliance on heavier regulation and other forms of centralized decision making.
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From page 86...
... Moreover, none of the relatively straightforward measures required to unleash market forces are incompatible with maintairing improved public programs to subsidize the procurement of care by those who would otherwise be underinsured and underserved. The committee e S view of health planning and health policy is the one that prevailed generally until quite recently, but I do not think it has much relevance anymore in light of the 1979 amendments and the new Congressional mood.
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From page 87...
... I fear that this report will serve more to confirm health planners' preference for business as usual than to alert them to their new responsibilities.
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Key Terms

  • health planners
  • allocate resources
  • cost containment
  • market forces
  • private restraints

  • improved public
  • resources development
  • planning mechanism
  • sincerely believe
  • maintairing improved

  • market failure
  • containment bill
  • care financing
  • fundamentally unsound
  • common tendency

  • operate wherever
  • encourage health
  • congress rejected
  • dramatic reversal
  • building bridges

  • proposed hospital
  • regulatory legislation
  • view health
  • anticompetitive policies
  • measures required

  • arguably necessitates
  • rate setting
  • tax law
  • marginal sense
  • hospital cost


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