Abstract
This essay seeks to characterise the essential features of an equitable health care system in terms of the classical Aristotelian concepts of horizontal and vertical equity, the common (but ill-defined) language of "need" and the economic notion of cost-effectiveness as a prelude to identifying some of the more important issues of value that policy-makers will have to decide for themselves; the characteristics of health (and what determines it) that can cause policy to be ineffective (or have undesired consequences); the information base that is required to support a policy directed at securing greater equity, and the kinds of research (theoretical and empirical) that are needed to underpin such a policy.