Discussion of health care arouses great passion - who gets health care and how much they get is both a moral and practical challenge to a civilized society and of personal interest to all. We dont want to get ill and we want to be properly treated if we do. Economics as a discipline can provide great insight into these issues. The fundamental problem of scarcity requires choices. Even if our preference is to spend more on health care, there are limits as to how much of our personal and national income we can spend on it. However we do decide to spend and we want to spend it efficiently so that we get more health care for a given commitment of resources. To answer these questions we need to introduce and apply a range of economic concepts.