 People who claim a right to health may mean something less troubling. They should be understood to be claiming that certain individuals or groups or society as a whole are obliged to perform various actions, such as designing certain institutions and distributing important goods in certain ways that promote or maintain or restore their health, and they are obliged to refrain from actions that interfere with it. The reference to health should be construed as a handy way to characterize functionally the relevant, socially-controllable actions, namely those that affect population health and its distribution. This gloss on the meaning of a right to health broadens the range of actions from the provision of health care to the meeting of the broader set of health needs that arises when we grasp the broader determinants of health. This gloss allows us to see why some advocates, for example of a human right to health, have insisted on a “right to health” and not just on a “right to (certain) health care services.” They want, and reasonably so, the right to imply that there are obligations to perform a broad range of actions that affect health, even if these actions are not normally construed as health care services and even if they involve factors outside the health sector, however broadly construed. The gloss makes it clear, however, that a right to health, so understood, is not violated when there has been a just distribution of the socially controllable factors affecting health, yet health fails anyway. Consequently, we do not have to denounce as confused those who claim a right to have the full range of their health needs met.