Health-Health Tradeoffs

The fiftieth anniversary of the Administrative Procedure Act2 arrives at a time when administrative institutions are receiving more serious public attention than in any period since the New Deal. The New Deal was committed to immensely strengthened national institutions and to large and largely independent bureaucratic entities.3 These commitments are now under severe strain. Much of this was signalled by the election of President Reagan in 1980 and, in particular, by his promulgation of a controversial executive order calling for attention to the costs and benefits of regulatory initiatives.4 In 1993, it was firmly established that a new direction had been set, when President Clinton issued a new executive order that substantially overlapped with President Reagan's.5