Yesterday, with the biggest capital injection in health for a decade, it was the main course.
"Health" was the first word in Finance Minister Grant Robertson's Budget press release; it was the first sector highlighted in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's own statement.
With investment in hospitals, free GP visits, addressing DHB deficits, and salting away money for looming pay settlements, there were few areas of health investment which were not addressed in some manner.
On Wednesday, the Council of Trade Unions released a health funding analysis in which it estimated to return to the spending power of 2009-10, operational expenditure needed to rise to $18.8 billion.
While yesterday's Budget fell a few hundred thousand short of that figure, it went a long way towards addressing the underinvestment in the health system Labour campaigned against.
It is not coming all at once - many of the spending hikes have been spread out over four years - but it is coming.
And with Mr Robertson predicting surpluses in the years ahead, there may be more to come.
While - as well foreshadowed - the promised $10 drop in GP visit fees did not happen, free visits for under-14s and lower charges for community service card holders is a start.
With an announcement about a review of general practice funding expected shortly, cheaper visits for all may still be on the horizon.
Big funding increases for DHBs will go some way to addressing their ever-rising deficits - $190million nationwide at last count.
Extra funding for capital works will also be hoovered up quickly, hospital building issues springing up from Whangarei to Dunedin.
So far so good, but health is a hungry sector - comment yesterday was that while it enjoyed the entree, health organisations were ready for the next course.
Satisfying that appetite is the challenge which awaits the Government in future Budgets.
