TO say that health care is special is to say that it is morally important in ways that justify distributing medical resources more equally than we typically distribute other social goods, and wealth in particular. 1 Depicting health care as special in this way is a common first step in theorizing about justice in the distribution of medical resources. 2 There are different reasons for thinking that health care is special, but the particular ‘specialness’ view I am concerned with is Norman Daniels’. According to that view health care is special because health has ‘strategic importance’in facilitating our opportunity to pursue our life plans. 3 Since health care is special in that way (facilitating opportunities for life plans), a concern for equality of opportunity to pursue life plans spells a commitment to an egalitarian distribution of health care. I wish to offer two arguments that, if correct, should lead us to doubt that the ‘equality of opportunity’explanation shows health care to be special. The first argument says that Daniels’ specialness account is too narrow: it cannot justify