The resilience of large Brazilian cities and the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

This paper aimed to describe the resilience of the Federal Government’s fund of Public Health Actions and Services (ASPS) in Brazil during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. It shows that the development of the contemporary public health sector was based on cooperative federalism. In this context, municipal participation in financing was consolidated around the constitutional agreement of budget binding between the levels of the Brazilian federation (Central Government, states, and municipalities). The Budget Binding Index (BBI) and the resilience of the sample of 87 municipalities with a high budget are described from the Public Health Budget Information System (SIOPS) indicators, available at DataSUS/Ministry of Health. The paper shows that the central government withdrew its support for increased ASPS expenditure in the last decade, stabilizing the allocation of its resources through the veto on budget binding. The change in federal orientation shifted the burden of expanding financing to municipal and state governments. The paper concludes that the increase in municipal expenditures offset the stabilization of federal expenditures. Budget binding was crucial to the resilience of ASPS funding in most municipalities in the sample during the first cycle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS
Health financing; Budget binding index; Federalism; COVID-19; Resilience