Health is a constitutional right in Brazil. This essay debates the opening of the healthcare market, in its private subsystem, to foreign investment (Foreign Direct Investment), sanctioned by the Brazilian government (Law 13097/2015). It searches for evidence in the literature which demonstrate similar experiences in other countries, as well as contextualises the national healthcare market in the global services investment setting. This Law, lacking regulatory mechanisms and previous discussions in social control instances, will fail in the promotion of greater competition among providers and will entail, as a long term consequence, the unviability of the national public health subsystem.
Health; Unified Health System; Public health policy