Abstract This article analyses the effect of public policy intervention in the production of health capital on fertility, private investment in children’s health and education, and human capital accumulation. I have used a growth model with endogenous fertility, in which the usual parental trade-off between the quantity and quality of their children is augmented with an additional factor that affects children’s human capital, which is health. I analyse the overall society-wide effect of public policy intervention and derive a condition that determines precisely whether public provision of free health services increases or decreases the average level of human capital in the society.