The Unified Health System and Workers’ Health in Brazil

ABSTRACT

The implementation of the Unified Health System (SUS) over the past three decades calls for a critical analysis from several perspectives. This article aims to revisit some aspects of Brazilian health policies, discussing the current situation and the importance of the SUS for developing Workers’ Health (WH). This opinion piece analyzes the main political facts related to the SUS and WH. The findings indicate that the SUS has not been consolidated as a universal health system, and we can identify privatization at the phenomenological level and the financialization of health at the structural level. The expansion of public services was accompanied by the growth of the private sector, especially intermediary companies. The government escalated the counter-reform of the Brazilian Health Reform (RSB), turning the SUS into a simulacrum, compromising the universalization and expansion of public services. The creation of the Frente pela Vida signals an opportunity to resume the RSB again through the socio-community route, especially after the rapprochement of workers’ representative organizations with the health movement. In conclusion, since politics is the biggest challenge facing the SUS, social struggles are antidotes to setbacks and reconstitute the RSB.

KEYWORDS
Health care reform; Unified Health System; Health policies; Occupational health policy