Analysis of the federal funding of the Unified Health System to fight the COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to analyze the federal funding of the Unified Health System (SUS) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and during the first four months of 2021 – periods characterized as the first and second waves. Documentary research was carried out, with data available on official websites. The pandemic took hold in Brazil in February 2020, in the context of the chronic underfunding of SUS, which deepened with the strangulation of appropriations verified from the Constitutional Amendment 95/2016, which defined the ceiling on primary expenditure and the freezing of the federal floor of SUS until 2036, at the same value as the 2017 floor. This constitutional measure made it possible to deepen the fiscal austerity policy by reducing primary expenditure and public debt in relation to the Gross Domestic Product. These goals also conditioned federal funding to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, whose budget and financial execution can be characterized as reactive and delayed. This form of execution compromised meeting the health needs of the population, in addition to harming the management of SUS in subnational government spheres.

KEYWORDS
Unified Health System; Health financing; COVID-19; Health economics; Public expenditures on health