I'm also against this. Makes healing skills useless and that way compromises diversion.
Not that I'm in favor of this idea, but what he actually said was auto-heal OUT of combat. There's still plenty of need to heal during combat or else you will die. Auto-healing is often used in games which tune the combat difficulty so that most fights are a challenge.
Yes, I know he meant OUT of combat. Doesn't change the fact, that this for example would affect the outcome of a fight. I.E. - half dead would be the same as almost untouched, and very well influence consecutive fights.
Edit:
Or in other words, as long as you don't take a lethal amount of damage during a fight you would never need a real healing skill.
