The Health Agenda for the Future

Abstract

Two clear ideological lines seem to run through discussions concerning public policy with regard to health and welfare. These arguments are based on assumptions that are broader and more general than those that pertain only to health field. The old moral order consisted of a major concern with integrity and wholeness. Now, however, one can see a new morality developing, in which concern is with honesty and antihypocrisy. But much public policy still reflects old morality, based on compassion and on a concern for quality in evolution of public policy regarding health and social insurance. More and more, society is being exhorted to adapt to new morality, with its great emphasis on not promising what cannot be delivered, and on developing programs to meet broad-based demands rather than just professionally drawn goals. In a sense, a new type of politician has become prophet of new morality, and true church tends to be bedded in a public policy. While old values-the old morality --have been justification for development of social policy in past, it is doubtful that they can continue to be basis for future policy in face of new wave of public insistence. Dealing with that problem would seem to call for something that sounds as odd as the constructive manipulation of hypocrisy. It will not be possible to implement public policy without a full professional commitment of support, and to get that kind of support behavior of politicians must be such as to attract it. The second ideological line relates to productive qualities in human organization. As a culture, United States is moving into a