Thirty years of the Unified Health System (SUS)

Abstract

This article, which aims to explore questions relating to SUS at 30 and to dialogue with other studies, presents an overview of the positive drivers, the obstacles and the threats to Brazil’s Unified Health System. It points to a lack of prioritizing the SUS on the part of the government, underfunding and attacks on the system made by capital’s policies. The article also suggests that one of the most significant threats to SUS is the financialization of health, linked to the financial dominance. It concludes by arguing that the SUS is not consolidated, justifying alliances between democratic, popular and socialist forces, with new strategies, tactics and forms of organization to face up to the power of capital and its representatives in society and in the State.

Unified Health System; Health policy; Brazilian health reform