This article discusses the recent progress made in the counter-reform of the State in health, particularly in the privatization of the management for social organizations, and it also presents an explanatory theoretical focus on this phenomenon today.The new settings of the Brazilian health system resulting from the interactions between the State and the market are investigated by addressing the years beginning in the first Lula administration, from 2003 to the present, and the focus of the social organizations based or active in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Despite the expectations created for substantial changes in the economic and social policies, the Lula administration maintained important elements of governments that preceded him from the 1990s. At the state level, the Sérgio Cabral Filho administration clearly prioritized outsourcing. A critical analysis of the arguments used to boost this counter-reform is made based on a few case studies. At the end, an explanatory thesis is presented on the progress made in the light of the transformations of the material base, of the political superstructure of contemporary capitalism, and of the Brazilian social formation.
social organizations; counter-reform of the State; health and market