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In the coming decades, health systems will be required to exist within a greatly shifting context. The future of health will be mainly marked by a rise in the prevalence of chronic diseases and an ageing population, with major epidemiological changes taking place alongside this. Even taking into account a reduction in morbidity, and therefore an increase in healthy life expectancy, the need for care and support will explode. If the use of the health system and professional practices remain unchanged, we can expect serious consequences relating to the need for hospital infrastructure and nursing homes, as well as the need for resources to be allocated to home care and assistance. Nobody can predict the evolution of our systems over the next fifty years in a context of a constant and marked increase in health costs. In terms of systems planning and regulation, our tools and our way of thinking about epidemiology date back to the last century and are soon likely to become outdated. It is therefore not simply just a matter of creating new standards, new regulations, and reforming resource allocation mechanisms. Instead, society must take action, and must (or will have to anyway) re-question itself on health, health care access, equity, and on life and death.