This article analyses how the last Brazilian Constitution - which regulates the universal rights of public health care - has negatively impacted the distribution of health care in terms of the access that Brazilians with lower incomes have to public health care. The specific way that the public and private sectors of health care functions has caused this to happen. This phenomenon was indirectly tested using supplementary health economics survey data, together with a traditional household survey, the "Pesquisa Nacional de Amostra por Domicílio" (PNAD), from 1998. Logit and probit models were used to analyze the data, and the results supported the proposed hypothesis.
Medical care; Public health; Private health; Health insurance; ANS
