Abstract: | Finnish public health care planning is a multi-level five year planning system which is heavily bureaucratized. The planning process is formalized and is supposed to work according to fixed time-tables. Here the system is seen to display a conflict between technical planning assumptions and the political and pluralistic setting of the system. This conflict is seen to generate bureaucratic inertia. Empirical evidence indicates that the system does not work according to the a priori set schedules and it is doubtful whether it will keep up to schedule even after the reforms that have been made. |