ABSTRACT
The Report implies and suggests that the state should, as a matter of justice promote health. Health care is something which individual people and public and private agencies can sometimes provide for other people. The state in the UK is responsible, by virtue of the existence of the National Health Service (NHS), for the distribution of some health care. The NHS as an agency of the state should, by considering individual cases impartially, treat individual people differently — that is unequally — but justifiably so. The two issues of health promotion and the reduction of health inequalities are curious ones for any government or state to address. Perhaps a health education policy which presented people with knowledge concerning smoking, worrying, drinking, exercise, nutrition and health and allowed them to make informed choices might be a justifiable means to the promotion of good health and the reduction of ill-health.
