The article presents the trajectory of social policies in Brazil and identifies, at each stage, the existing social protection model. It affirms that the Federal Constitution of 1988, when it introduced the concept of Social Security and created the National Health Care System, represented a rupture with what came before. The subordination of the principles of justice and social inclusion, which guided the design of this new social protection model, to a liberal and monetarist policy had important impacts in the phase of implementation of the social policies. However, the dilemma that such policies go through and, in particular, the construction of the National Health Care System must be analyzed from a theoretical perspective that encompasses the agreements and disagreements between the three movements that characterize Brazilian Sanitary Reform, which are: subjectivation, constitutionalization and institutionalization.
Sanitary reform; Social policy; Citizenship; Right to health; National Health Care System