Health planning: progress, prospects, and issues.

The new Health Planning Act may have prescribed collection of too much data, too soon. There is no refuge in numbers from the social, professional, and political complexities of planning. A mechanistic criterion of "need" breaks down on close examination--we will have to recognize the effect of "availability." There is little or no experience in carrying out policies of selective contraction; modesty in claims and moderation in pursuit of goals are called for.