ABSTRACT
The Cambridge Online Dictionary sums up a libertarian as ‘a person who believes that people should be free to think and behave as they and should not have limits put on them’. However, a more nuanced view is that it is about maximizing the scope for freedom within the inherent limits of the need to deal with the fact that when the freedoms of one individual, group or society are exercised they will at times clash with those of others. The term ‘justice’ at its broadest refers to the notion that fairness should condition both how individuals, communities and societies behave and the way that structures and systems are created and run by them. Potentially more legitimate territory comes in the form of the argument that reciprocity at least can be used to form a link between the provision or willingness to provide healthcare ‘goods’ and the ability to obtain them.
