National Health Planning and Resources Development Act

The National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-641) was an item of American legislation.

• Three programs (Hill-Burton, Regional Medical Program, and Comprehensive Health Planning Act) were consolidated.
• Congress wakes up to the realization that the provision of federal funds for the construction of new health care facilities was contributing to increasing health care costs generating duplication of facilities.
• The intent of congress in passing this Act was to create throughout the country a new, strengthened and improved federal, state and area wide system of health planning and resources development that would help provide solutions to several identified problems. These problems were as follows: 1) achievement of equal access to quality health care at reasonable cost; 2) infusion of federal funds into the health care system was contributing to inflationary health care costs while failing to produce an adequate supply or distribution of health resources; 3) the lack of a comprehensive, rational approach by the public and private sectors to the problems of the lack of uniformly effective methods of delivering health care, misdistribution of health care facilities and manpower and increasing cost of health care; 4) uncontrollable and inflationary health care costs, particularly of hospital stays; 5) inadequate incentives for the use of appropriate alternative levels of health care and the substitution of ambulatory and intermediate care for inpatient hospital care; 6) the need to encourage providers to play an active role in developing health policy; and 7) the lack of basic knowledge regarding proper personal health care and methods for effective use of available health services in large segments of the population.