Are health care resources in the developed country context really scarce?

It is often said – indeed I have said it myself on a number of occasions – that the problem of the fair and efficient allocation of health care resources stems from the fact of scarcity. I should like to use the splendid and notable occasion of the tenth birthday party of Health Economics, Policy and Law publicly to repent of this heresy. Instead, I shall suggest to you that the problem of the fair and efficient allocation of health care resources is not one of scarcity. There potentially is a problem of shortages, a problem that is likely to affect some health care systems more than others, depending upon how they are organised and financed. It is, I think, a problem for the UK’s NHS, because of its highly centralised nature. How far it characterises other systems is a matter of empirical investigation.