The violation of health equity cannot be judged merely by looking at inequality in health. Indeed, it can be argued that some of the most important policy issues in the promotion of health care are deeply dependent on the overall allocation of resources to health, rather than only on distributive arrangements within health care (for example, the ‘rationing’ of health care and other determinants of health), on which a good deal of the literature on health equity seems, at this time, to concentrate. Resources are fungible, and social arrangements can facilitate health of the deprived, not just at the cost of other people’s health care or health achievement, but also through a different social arrangement or an altered allocation of resources. The extent of inequality in health cannot give us adequate information to assess health equity.